120 SOME ERRORS REGARDING 
ing near his house. He was unaware that the writers he 
speaks of, were not wrong in what they had said of the 
Acadicus, and that he and they had different species in 
view, the habits of which were so different as to be no- 
ticed by him, yet not such as to lead him to detect their 
specific distinctions. 
Of Mr. Audubon’s inaccuracies, I will not here speak 
at any length, nor am I willing to be suspected of any 
sympathy with those who have sought, on this account, 
to detract from the transcendent merits of the great paint- 
er and student of nature. While, however, we honor all 
that was excellent, we may at the same time, without dis- 
paragement to his great merits, correct whatever mistakes 
may have crept into his works, and even be pardoned if 
we enjoy a quiet laugh over some conclusions, now known 
to be visionary, but which his exuberant imagination, 
now and then, led him to put into printed words. We 
will take only one instance. 
In his account of the common Black-Poll Warbler (Den- 
droica striata), we find the following eloquent picture of 
the delight with which he first discovered the nest of this 
bird: “One fair morning, while several of us were 
scrambling through one of the thickets of trees, scarcely 
waist high, my youngest son chanced to seare from her 
nest a female of the Black-Poll Warbler. Reader, just 
fancy how this raised my spirits. I felt as if the enor- 
mous expense of our voyage had been refunded. There, 
said I, we are the first white men who have seen such a 
est.” 
_ It seems almost too bad to apply the touchstone of 
sober reality to so charming an evidence as is here given 
f the whole-hearted manner with which this enthusias- 
tic lover of ornithology devoted himself to his missions 
