362 Letter from Audubon to the Editor, 



poor pine forests, and impenetrable thickets of cactus and pal- 

 mettos, form the under growth. Birds are rare, and very shy; 

 and with ail our exertions, we have not collected one hundred 

 skins in a fortnight that we have been here. I have received 

 many kind attentions, and numerous invitations to visit planta- 

 tions, on our way to the south, where I shall direct my steps in a 

 few days. I have drawn seventeen species, among which one 

 mongrel vulture, which I think will prove new. You will see it, 

 I hope, very soon. 



I will give you a sketch of our manner of passing the time. 

 We are up before day, and our toilette is soon made. If the day 

 is to be spent at drawing, Lehman and T take a walk, and 

 Ward his gun, dog, and basket, returning when hungry, or fa- 

 tigued, or both. We draw uninterruptedly till dusk, after which, 

 another walk, then write up journals, and retire to rest early. 

 When we have nothing on hand to draw, the guns are cleaned 

 over night, a basket with bread and cheese, a bottle with old 

 whiskey, and some water, is prepared. We get into a boat, and 

 after an hour of hard rowing, we find ourselves in the middle of 

 most extensive m.arshes, as far as the eye can reach. The boat 

 is anchored, and we go on wading through mud and water, amid 

 myriads of sand-flies and musquetoes, shooting here or there a 

 bird, or squatting down on our hams for half an hour, to observe 

 the ways of the beautiful beings we are in pursuit of. This is 

 the way in which we spend the day. At the approach of even- 

 ing, the cranes, herons, pelicans, curlews, and the trains of black- 

 birds are passing high over our heads, to their roosting places; 

 then we also return to ours. If some species are to draw the 

 next day, and the weather is warm, they are outlined that same 

 evening, to save them from incipient putridity. I have ascer- 

 tained satisfactorily that feathers lose their brilliancy almost as 

 rapidly as flesh or skin itself, and am of opinion that a bird aHve 

 is 75 per cent more rich in colours than twenty-four hours after 

 its death ; w^e therefore skin those first which have been first 

 killed, and the same evening. All this, added to our other avo- 

 cations, brings us into the night pretty well fatigued. Such, my 

 dear friend, is the fife of an active naturalist ; and such, in my 

 opinion, it ought to be. It is nonsense ever to hope to see in the 

 closet what is only to be perceived — as far as the laws, arrange- 

 ments and beauties of ornithological nature is concerned — by 



