x PREFACE 
but he did not begin the publication of it till 
fourteen years after Wilson’s death. Both 
men went directly to Nature and underwent 
incredible hardships in exploring the woods 
and marshes in quest of their material. 
Audubon’s rambles were much wider, and 
extended over a much longer period of time. 
Wilson, too, contemplated a work upon our 
quadrupeds, but did not live to begin it. 
Audubon was blessed with good health, 
length of years, a devoted and self-sacrifie- 
ing wife, and a buoyant, sanguine, and 
elastic disposition. He had the heavenly 
gift of enthusiasm — a passionate love for 
the work he set out to do. He was a 
natural hunter, roamer, woodsman ; as un- 
worldly as a child, and as simple and trans- 
parent. We have had better trained and 
more scientific ornithologists since his day, 
but none with his abandon and poetic fervour 
in the study of our birds. 
Both men were famous pedestrians and 
often walked hundreds of miles at a stretch. 
They were natural explorers and voyagers. 
