Ornithological Biography. 187 



** The Academy has commissioned me with rendering to it a verbal 

 account of the work, which, in one of its preceding sessions, has 

 been communicated to it by Mr. Audubon, and which has for its ob- 

 ject, the birds of North America. Its character can be given in 

 Very few words, by saying that it is the most magnijicent monument 

 which has hitherto been raised to ornithology.^^ 



Mr. Swainson, one of the most distinguis^hed naturalists of the 

 age, has said of this work, 



*' It exhibits a perfection in the higher attributes of zoological 

 painting, never before attempted. To represent the passions and the 

 feelings of birds, might, until now, have been well deemed chimeri- 

 cal. Rarely, indeed, do we see their outward forms represented 

 with any thing like nature. In my estimation, not more than thre6 

 painters ever lived, who could draw a bird. Of these, the lamented 

 Barrabaud, of whom France may be justly proud, was the chief. 

 He has long passed away ; but his mantle has, at length, been re- 

 covered in the forests of America." 



The "Ornithological Biography'* contains a description of one 

 hundred birds, natives of America, all of w^hich are delineated of 

 full size, and coloured after nature, in the great work which Cu- 

 vier and Swainson have so justly praised. To these descriptions 

 are attached others of the trees, shrubs, herbs, and flowers, where 

 the birds build and disport, in their native woods. The botanical 

 characters of these plants are annexed. The ornithologist and 

 the less learned lover of nature, will find a rare treat in these 

 vivid descriptions, comprehending the most delightful details of 

 the manners and customs of the feathered tribes. But what, 

 perhaps, will be deemed by general readers, to enrich Especially 

 this attractive work, are the rare, and most interesting narratives 

 and local descriptions, interspers^ed, very judiciously, to the num- 

 ber of twenty, through the work. They are as follow : the Ohio, 

 the Great Pine Swamp, the Prairie, the Regulators, Improve- 

 ments in the Navigation of the Mississippi, a Flood, Meadville, the 

 Cougar, the Earthquake, the Hurricane, Kentucky Sports, the 

 Traveller and the Pole-cat, Deer Hunting, Niagara, Hospitality in 

 the woods, the Original Painter, Louisville in Kentucky, the Ec- 

 centric Naturalist, Scipio and the Bear, and Colonel Boon. All 

 these passages arrest the attention very forcibly, and some of 

 them are written with great eloquence. So powerful are the 

 impressions made by those graphic narratives, that we rise from 

 the repeated reading of them, almost as familiar with the sub- 

 ject, as if we had been the compa.nions of Mr. Audubon in his 



Vol. I.— 18 



