138 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 
phies seems to have been only secondary 
with him. 
He had the lively mercurial tempera- 
ment of the Latin races from which he 
sprang. He speaks of himself as ‘‘ warm, 
irascible, and at times violent.’’ 
His perceptive powers, of course, led 
his reflective. His sharpness and quick- 
ness of eye surprised even the Indians. 
He says: ‘‘My observatory nerves never 
gave way.’’ 
His similes and metaphors were 
largely drawn from the animal world. ” 
Thus he says, ‘‘I am as dull as a beetle,’’ 
during his enforced stay in London. 
While he was showing his drawings to 
Mr. Rathbone, he says: ‘‘I was panting 
like the wingéd pheasant.’’ At a din- 
ner in some noble house in England he 
said that the men servants ‘‘moved as 
quietly as killdeers.”’ On another oc- 
casion, when the hostess failed to put 
him at his ease: ‘‘There I stood, mo- 
tionless as a Heron.’’ 
