JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 75 
volubility he is rather displeasing. .. . 
Mrs. Jeffrey was nervous and very 
much dressed.’’ 
Early in January he painted his 
‘¢Pheasant attacked by a Fox.’’ This 
was his method of proceeding: ‘‘I take 
one [a fox] neatly killed, put him up 
with wires, and when satisfied with the 
truth of the position, I take my palette 
and work as rapidly as possible ; the 
same with my birds. If practicable, I 
finish the bird at one sitting, — often, it 
is true, of fourteen hours,—so that I 
think they are correct, both in detail 
and in composition.’’ 
In pictures by Landseer and other 
artists which he saw in the galleries of 
Edinburgh, he saw the skilful painter, 
“the style of men who know how to 
handle a brush, and carry a good 
effect,’’ but he missed that closeness and 
fidelity to Nature which to him so much 
outweighed mere technique. Landseer’s 
“Death of a Stag’’ affected him like 
