462 



Audubon. 



he opened his exhibition. Four hundred drawings, — paintings in water co- 

 lours — of about two thousand birds, covered the walls of the institution hall, 

 in the royal society buildings, and the effect was like magic. The spectator 

 imagined himself in the forest. All were of the size of life, from the wren 

 and the humming bird, to the wild turkey and the bird of Washington. But 

 what signified the mere size 1 The colours were all of life too — bright as 

 when borne in beaming beauty through the woods. There, too, were their 

 attitudes and postures, infinite as they are assumed by the restless creatures, 

 in motion or rest, in their glee and their gambols, their loves and their wars, 

 singing, or caressing, or brooding, or preying, or tearing one another into 

 pieces. The trees too, on which they sat or sported, all true to nature, in 

 hole, branch, spray, and leaf ; the flowering shrubs, and the ground flowers, 

 the weeds, and the very grass, ail American — so too the atmosphere and the 

 skies — all transatlantic. 'Twas a wild and poetical vision of the heart of the 

 new world, inhabited as yet almost wholly by the lovely or noble creatures, 

 ' that own not man's dominion.' " 



We know not in what more expressive language, we could 

 have sought to do justice to the magic drawings of Audubon, 

 than that of the quotation we have just made. 



The complete success of this exhibition, decided Audubon 

 upon the great undertaking he has, in part, most admirably ac- 

 complished ; that of engraving these magnificent drawings. We 

 should not do justice to them, if we were to omit the following 

 passage in the introductory address : — 



" Merely to say, that each object of my illustrations is of the size of nature, 

 were too vague — for to many it might only convey the idea that they are so, 

 more or less, according as the eye of the delineator may have been more or 

 less correct in measurement simply obtained through that medium; and of 

 avoiding error in this respect I am particularly desirous. Not only is every 

 object, as a whole, of the natural size, but also every portion of each object. 

 The compass aided me in its delineation, regulated and corrected each part, 

 •even to the very fore-shortening which now and then may be seen in the 

 figures. The bill, the feet, the legs, the claws, the very feathers as they 

 project one beyond another, have been accurately measured. The birds, 

 almost all of them, were killed by myself, after I had examined their motions 

 Tind habits, as much as the case admitted, and were regularly drawn on or 

 near the spot where I procured them. The positions may, perhaps, in some 

 instances, appear outre ; but such supposed exaggerations can afford subject 

 of criticism only to persons unacquainted with the feathered tribes ; for, be- 

 lieve me, nothing can be more transient or varied than the attitudes or posi- 

 tions of birds. The Heron, when warming itself in the sun, will sometimes 

 drop its wings several inches, as if they were dislocated ; the Swan may often 

 be seen floating with one foot extended from the body ; and some Pigeons, 

 you well know, turn quite over, when playing in the air. The flowers, 

 plants, or portions of trees which are attached to the principal objects, have 



