on September 1, 1828. His biographer says that his Diary freshens a little after the salt breeze of the Channel.' His first visit on the arrival at the French capital was to the Jardin des Plantes to see the great Cuvier. Audubon was astonished to hear that his great ornithological work had not even been heard of in Paris. Swainson was Audubon's companion on the occasion of the visit to France. On their arrival at Baron Cuvier's house, they knocked, but were told the great comparative anatomist was too busy to be seen. However, they were determined to look at the great man, so they knocked again, and sent up their names :—

'Monsieur le Baron, like an excellent good man, came to us. He had heard much of my friend Swainson, and greeted him as he deserves, and was polite and kind to me, although he had never heard of me before.'

On the following Saturday Audubon had the honour of dining with the Baron. At a meeting of the Royal Académie des Sciences, Audubon exhibited his portfolio. Cuvier arose and spoke of the work. It was admired as usual, and the Baron was requested to review it for the memoirs of the Academy. Audubon was pleased with the reception he met with from so many celebrated men. From the respect with which he was everywhere received, he imagined he should get several subscribers. In the midst of this charming vision, he writes to Mrs. Audubon in the following words:

'I have now run the gauntlet of Europe, Lucy, and may be proud of two things-that I am considered the first ornithological painter, and the first practical naturalist of America.'

The date of this letter is September 9. Poor Audubon! On the 15th of the same month, he writes most despondingly to his wife :

'France is poor indeed! This day I have attended the Royal Academy of Sciences, and had my plates examined by about one hundred persons. "Fine, very fine! issued from many mouths; but they said also, "What a work! what a price! who can pay it?"

When Audubon mentioned that he had thirty subscribers in Manchester, they stared and seemed surprised.

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Now

'Poor France,' he continues, thy fine climate, rich vineyards, and the wishes of the learned avail thee nothing; thou art a destitute beggar and not the powerful friend thou wert represented to me. it is that I plainly see how happy or lucky it was in me not to have come to France first; for if I had, my work now would not have had even a beginning. It would have perished like a flower in October; and I should have returned to my woods, without the hope of leaving behind that eternal fame which my ambition, industry, and perseverance long to enjoy. Not a subscriber, Lucy, not one!

But Audubon was not doomed to such a heavy misfortune as this. He afterwards received a note from Baron de la Bouillerie, announcing the King's subscription for six copies, and obtained altogether in France thirteen subscribers. Most eulogistic is Cuvier's report on Audubon's work, which is characterised as the most magnificent monument yet erected to Ornithology. If Mr. Audubon's work should ever be 'completed, we shall be obliged to acknowledge that America, in magnificence of execution, has surpassed the Old World.' After an absence from England of two months, Audubon returned to London, where he remained till the spring of 1828; he then revisited America, and proceeded, after three weeks' stay in Philadelphia, to the shores of New Jersey and the Great Egg Harbour. Here Audubon was once more free to roam where he listed. His chief object for visiting Egg Harbour was to procure birds known to the people there by the name of lawyers.' We presume they must have been birds with long bills. A fish, which he considered a curiosity, was transmitted to Cuvier. Audubon passed several weeks along those delightful and healthy shores; one day going into the woods to search the swamps in which the herons bred, passing another amid the joyous cries of the thrush hens, and on a third carrying slaughter among the white-breasted gulls; by way of amusement, sometimes hauling the fish called the 'sheep's head' from an eddy along the shore; watching the gay terns as they danced in the air, or plunged into the water to seize the tiny fry. Many a drawing he made at Egg Harbour, and many a pleasant day he spent along its shores. Then follows an interesting account of the Great Pine Swamp or Forest. Our naturalist spent six weeks here, and found the wild turkey, pheasant, and grouse tolerably abundant; but how would an angler's heart beat with joy to think of the trout streams in the river Sehigh! Ah! reader,' exclaims Audubon, if you are an angler, do go there and try for yourself. For my 'part, I can only say that I have been made weary with 'pulling up from the rivulets the sparkling fish, allured by the struggles of the common grasshopper.'

Audubon now started off to his wife and children, whom he had not seen for some years. The former was now at Bayon Sara, in Mississippi, resident in a house belonging to a Mr. Johnson. There he remained three weeks, busy hunting the wood and drawing birds and other animals. But Audubon would again be a wanderer; he left his sons in America, and went with Mrs. Audubon to Washington and Philadelphia, thence to New York, thence once more to England. Every

thing, he writes, had gone on well in England; and, although the subscribers list had not increased, it had not much diminished. He found he had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society during his absence, for which he believes he was indebted to Mr. Children and Lord Stanley. Subscribers, however, did not pay up' as regularly as he expected; and, money being wanted, he set to work again with pencil and brush. Audubon visited Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, York, Hull, and other places, and once more came to Edinburgh on October 13, 1830. He made an agreement with the well-known and deservedly-appreciated naturalist, William Macgillivray, to assist him in arranging the more scientific part of the Biography of the Birds,' and in correcting his ungrammatical manuscripts.' Macgillivray was to receive for his supervision two guineas per sheet of sixteen pages; and Audubon began at once to write the first volume. On April 15, he writes:

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'I have balanced my accounts with the birds of America, and the whole business is really wonderful; forty thousand dollars have passed through my hands for the completion of the first volume. Who would believe that a lonely individual, who landed in England without a friend in the whole country, and with only sufficient pecuniary means to travel through it as a visitor, could have accomplished such a task as this publication? Who could believe that once in London Audubon had only a sovereign left in his pocket, and did not know of a single individual to whom he could apply to borrow another, when he was on the verge of failure in the very beginning of his undertaking? and above all who could believe that he extricated himself from all his difficulties, not by borrowing money, but by rising at four o'clock in the morning, working hard all day, and disposing of his works at a price which a common labourer would have thought little more than sufficient remuneration for his work?'

On September 3rd, 1831, Audubon and his wife are once more in New York. He knew of unexplored regions which he felt certain would furnish large additions of new birds to his collection; and so, after remaining a few days with his friends at Boston, he proceeded to East Florida, where he intended to pass the winter. The forests of East Florida for the most part consist of what are called 'pine barrens' in that country. The only trees that are seen are tall pines of indifferent quality, beneath which rank grass and low bushes grow. The soil is sandy, either covered with water in the rainy reason, or parched, with the exception of occasional pools of water, in the dry season. Various kinds of game abound in these wilds. Here and there the traveller is pleased to find a dark hummock' of

live oaks and other trees, seeming as if they had been planted in the wilderness.' The traveller approaching these hum'mocks' of oaks, feels the air cooler and more salubrious, he hears the songs of numerous birds, he enjoys the grateful odour of luxuriant flowers. In the midst of these extensive forests a race of men ply their vocations; these are the live-oakers,' or wood-cutters of Florida. They dwell in log huts or cabins, with their wives and families. The wood is used principally for ship-building. It is not an uncommon thing for a liveoaker' to be lost in the woods; and Audubon tells a painful story of one who had missed his way. One hummock' is so like another, and the grass, unless it has been burned, is so tall that a man cannot see over it. So difficult it is to preserve the little-beaten trail, and so heavy are the fogs, that wanderers in these extensive wilds have to exercise extreme caution and observation. Audubon describes a hurricane he experienced while off the coast of Florida in glowing language:

'We were not more than a cable's length from the shore, when with imperative voice the pilot calmly said to us, "Sit quite still, gentlemen, "for I should not like to lose you overboard just now; the boat can't "upset, my word for that, if you will but sit still. Here we have it!" Reader, persons who have never witnessed a hurricane, such as not unfrequently desolates the sultry climates of the South, can scarcely form an idea of their terrific grandeur. One would think that not content with laying waste all on land, it must needs sweep the waters of the shallows quite dry to quench its thirst. No respite for a moment does it afford to the objects within the reach of its furious current. . . . On it goes with a wildness and fury that are indescribable; and when at last its frightful blasts have ceased, nature, weeping and disconsolate, is left bereaved of her beautiful offspring. In instances even a full century is required before, with all her energies, she can repair her loss. The planter has not only lost his mansion, his crops, and his flocks, but he has to clear his lands anew, covered and entangled as they are with the trunks and branches of trees that are everywhere strewn. The bark overtaken by the storm is cast on the lee-shore, and if any are left to witness the fatal results, they are the "wreckers' alone, who, with inward delight, gaze upon the melancholy spectacle. Our light bark shivered like a leaf the instant the blast reached her sides. We thought she had gone over, but the next instant she was on the shore; and now in contemplation of the sublime and awful storm, I gazed around me. The waters drifted like snow; the tough mangroves hid their tops amid their roots, and the loud roaring of the waves driven among them blended with the howl of the tempest. It was not rain that fell; the masses of water flew in a horizontal direction, and where a part of my body was exposed, I felt as if a smart blow had been given me on it.'

There is an interesting chapter on the Wreckers of Florida,

of whose cruel and cowardly methods to allure vessels to the dreaded reefs so much had been said. Audubon, however, seems to have found them good sort of fellows, who gave him a hearty welcome. He paid a visit to several Florida vessels, when at the Tortugas. The commander of one of these vessels showed the naturalist a collection of marine shells, and whenever he pointed to one he had not seen before, offered it with much kindness. He also presented him with many eggs of rare birds. When Audubon showed the men some of his drawings, they expressed their pleasure, and offered their services in procuring specimens of birds.' So Audubon and the wreckers started off to Booby Island, ten miles from the Lighthouse. Here they had capital sport. The wreckers were firstrate shots, had excellent guns, and knew more about boobies and noddies than nine-tenths of the best naturalists in the 'world.' These wreckers are capital deer-hunters, and would dip like ducks' into the water, and emerge with some beautiful shell in the hand. It was with sincere regret that he bade these excellent fellows adieu.'

The lumberers of Maine are another interesting class of men Audubon met with. These men are employed in cutting down the trees and conveying the logs to the saw-mills, or the places for shipping. The pine-forests, where they ply their vocation, are truly magnificent; and so covered is the ground with decaying trunks of immense trees, which have fallen either from age or in consequence of accidental burnings,' that they have frequently to cut a way for themselves for considerable spaces. Their cattle are extremely fine and tractable. No rods do their drivers use to pain their flanks; no oaths or imprecations are ever heard to fall from the lips of these most industrious and temperate men. Why, reader, the lumberers speak to them as if they were rational beings; few words would seem to suffice, and their whole strength is applied to the labour, as if in gratitude to those who treat them with so much gentleness and humanity.'

Audubon next visited the Bay of Fundy, to procure waterfowl; and then removed to Boston, where he remained for two winters. He sent his eldest son to England to superintend the engraving and look after his general interests; and, after having recovered from a severe illness whilst in Boston, which he attributes to a sedentary life and too close application,' we find him again on the move in search of fresh materials for pen and pencil. Accordingly, on June 6th, 1833, he sailed from Eastport, in the schooner Ripley,' for Labrador. Here he was astonished beyond measure at the extraordinary

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