Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/253

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name of Audubon is a household word wherever Ornithology is followed; it is interwoven in the annals of Zoology; and with that of Agassiz is cherished in the fast advancing and now important cult of American Natural History. As stated in the Introduction: "His place as naturalist, woodsman, artist, author has long since been accorded him."

Audubon was an ornithologist by instinct and not by training; he found his subject in the woods and took it from nature; he deserted every pursuit to follow bird-life, as his financial experiences prove, and in losing everything which goes to make what is vulgarly called "success," he found the pleasure of his life, and achieved a lasting fame. From his own journal, which is here reprinted, two extracts relating to early days and manhood will mark this period of his career: "My father being mostly absent on duty, my mother suffered me to do much as I pleased; it was therefore not to be wondered at that, instead of applying closely to my studies, I preferred associating with boys of my own age and disposition, who were more fond of going in search of birds' nests, fishing, or shooting, than of better studies. Thus almost every day, instead of going to school when I ought to have gone, I usually made for the fields, where I spent the day." In later life when he separated from his business partner Rozier, each wrote as they felt, Audubon saying: "Rozier cared only for money, and liked St. Genevieve;" Rozier writing: "Audubon had no taste for commerce, and was constantly in the forest."

Consequently we are not surprised at a subsequent period of deep depression when, "without a dollar in the world, bereft of all revenues beyond my own personal talents and acquirements," he felt, the only time in his life, "when the Wild Turkeys that so often crossed my path, and the thousands of lesser birds that