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48 months later, he pathetically recounts what befell them: "A pair of Norway rats had taken possession of the whole, and reared a young family among gnawed bits of paper, which but a month previous, represented nearly one thousand inhabitants of the air!"

This discovery resulted in insomnia, and a fearful heat in the head; for several days he seemed like one stunned, but his youth and health stood him in hand, he rallied, and, undaunted, again sallied forth to the woods with dog and gun. In three years' time his portfolio was again filled.

The third catastrophe to some of his drawings was caused by a fire in a New York building in which his treasures were kept during his sojourn in Europe.

Audubon had an eye for the picturesque in his fellow-men as well as for the picturesque in Nature. On the Levee