APPENDIX 
THE BIRDS OF AMERICA. 
BY JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, F.R.S.L.&E. F.L.S. M.W.S. &e. 
A well known author remarks, when speaking of 
this naturalist of the woods and wilds, — a Devotedly 
attached to the study of nature, no less than to painting, 
he seems to have pursued both with a genius and an 
ardour, of which, in their united effects, there is no 
parallel. His ornithological narratives in the Edinburgh 
Philosophical Journal are as valuable to the scientific 
world, as they are delightful to the general reader. 
There is a freshness and an originality about these 
essays, which can only be compared to the animated 
biographies of Wilson. Both these men contemplated 
nature as she really is, not as she is often represented in 
books : they sought her in her sanctuaries. The shore, 
the mountains, and the forest, w r ere alternately their 
study, and there they drank the pure stream of know^- 
ledge at its fountainhead. The observations of such men 
are the corner stones of every attempt to discover the 
system of nature. Their writings will be consulted 
when our favourite theories shall have passed away. 
Ardently, therefore, do we hope, that M. Audubon will 
alternately become the historian and the painter of his 
favourite objects ; that he will never be made a convert 
to any system ; but instruct and delight us in a true 
and unprejudiced biography of nature.” Audubon, like 
Wilson, is a self-taught naturalist, and, like him, has 
vol. iv. q 
