256 
WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS. 
stuffed and classified, but dead or alive, as the subject of pro- 
foundest and unwearying study, illustrating the most majestic 
themes and capabilities of Art. 
Of necessity he is a naturalist likewise, and whether he be 
a technical commentator, he has been an accurate observer ; 
for nothing is too minute to escape the microscopic vision of 
the true Artist. 
To him each feather has both its separate form and its blend- 
ed expression ; each claw, beak, hair and scale, its own iden- 
tity ! The distinctions of sex and age he recognizes by a 
glance at plumage and size. Every note, posture and action, 
conveys to him a meaning — is significant of passion or pur- 
pose. All that can be known of habits and haunts, he makes 
familiar to himself in his lonely explorations 
Thus it is when he comes to paint these creatures, that he 
is enabled to make his pictures historical — to illuminate his 
figures with the heated light of life^ — 'to give its sparkle to 
their joy, its glow to their repose, and darkened glare to their 
anger. The same fine intuitions of effecV which guide 
him in grouping demi-god and hero, are exercised upon these 
pictures — with the same unerring tact he selects time, occa- 
sion, place, that the passion, incident and scene most charac- 
teristic may be exhibited at a glance — telling the story in 
full. The accessories of landscape are taken from its known 
and favorite haunts, including the grasses, shrubs or trees it 
most affects, for food or nidification — the incident' — 'jaerhaps 
battle with a natural enemy, or seizure of its prey — is just 
that which displays its finest traits of action, and in which 
varied views of form and i^lumage can be afforded — while 
the distinctions of size and markings which grow out of sex 
and age, are furnished in the grouping. 
The magical work is done ! The unregarded denizens of 
unhoused wilds are seen all at once to be sharers with proud 
humanity of its passions, sentiments and ev^n humors, and 
to express these in action far more free and noble for its sim- 
plicity I Then man is not alone upon the earth to think, to 
