BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF AUDUBON. 35 



" It is in the double capacity of an artist and 

 a philosopher that he has produced the work 

 which lias been laid before the Academy. You 

 Lave been struck by the size of the book, equal 

 or superior to the largest of the kind that has 

 been published, and which approaches the 

 double plates of the Description of Egypt, 



" These extraordinary dimensions has allowed 

 him to give species of the size of the Eagle and 

 Grouse of their natural magnitude, and to 

 multiply those which are smaller, so as to 

 represent them in every attitude. 



" The execution of those plates, so remark- 

 able for their size, appears to us to have been 

 equally successful in respect of drawing, engra- 

 ving, and colouring ; and although it be diflBcult 

 to a colourist to give relief with as much effect 

 as in painting, properly so called, this is not an 

 inconvenience in works of natural history. 

 Naturalists prefer the natural colour of objects 

 to those accidental tints which result from the 

 various inflections of light necessary to com- 

 plete picturesque truth, but foreign and even 

 iurtful to scientific truth." 



