Vv. 
As a youth Audubon was an unwill- 
ing student of books; as a merchant and 
mill owner in Kentucky he was an un- 
willing man of business, but during his 
whole career, at all times and in all 
places, he was more than a willing 
student of ornithology—he was an 
eager and enthusiastic one. He brought 
to the pursuit of the birds, and to the 
study of open air life generally, the 
keen delight of the sportsman, united 
to the ardour of the artist moved by 
beautiful forms. 
He was not in the first instance a man 
of science, like Cuvier, or Agassiz, or 
Darwin —a man seeking exact knowl- 
edge ; but he was an artist and a back- 
woodsman, seeking adventure, seeking 
the gratification of his tastes, and to put 
on record his love of the birds. He was 
the artist of the birds before he was their 
historian ; the writing of their biogra- 
