INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF AUDUBON.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "TOM OWEN, THE BEE HUNTER."
No department of natural history presents a more pleasing view than ornithology. All the associations connected with it are beautiful and inspiring. It takes its votary into the green fields and dark forests, leads him to the mountain tops, and furnishes excitement among the quiet retreats of the sequestered valley. Upon the feathered race have been expended the richest adornments of nature. There are no precious metals, no choice gems, no rare flowers, no rainbow tints that cannot find a rival counterpart in the plumage of birds; and to this transcendent beauty are added a varied, but always attractive form, a physiognomy expressive of love, of power, of unshrinking bravery. They have also voices almost human in their tones; voices that are associated with every pleasing recollection of innocence and youth because of their sweetness—and voices that startle because of their ferocity.
The habits of birds present examples of well-regulated, of almost Christianized society. They are married, and are given to marriage; they set up a comfortable establishment, which is the result of their own industry. They provide plentifully for their offspring, and educate them in the way they should go, and when they are old they never depart from it. The birds rise early to procure food, and retire with the setting sun; as husbands they are gallant, as wives loving. All that they do, or say, or look may be said to interest and form universal theme for admiration. Birds rejoice in creation. In the solitary fastnesses and eternal solitudes where the eye of man never penetrates or his mind worships, the voice of the bird is heard caroling forth praise. And what in the wide world is so hearty in its nature, or so guileless, as the singing bird? How often has its innocent voice awakened conscience in the mind of the depraved or reproved the complaining spirit! Who can hear the caroling even of the tiny wren without catching its exultant spirit? We have seen it on a Sabbath sunny morning mounted upon a bud-crowded limb of the Cherokee rose, giving out its song as if its heart and body would separate in its enthusiasm; and when you thought it had soared to its highest note, it would begin again, and pour forth a torrent of love, gratitude, praise, and prayer, commingled in such varied and soul-thrilling ecstasy that the little creature trembled and vibrated as if it were the chosen and valiant exponent of some rapturous and mighty soul. Such are birds, the intelligent and ornamental companions of man, the most prominent image among the associations and pleasing recollections of childhood, and one of the most admirable and wonderful beauties presented to his maturest mind.
Scientifically speaking, it would seem that the birds, by their familiarity, were prophets in their own country, and therefore very much without honor. The poet mentioned them in his sonnets, and everybody loved them; the gallant cock and the fierce eagle were honored as the insignia of mighty nations; but the few who examined their history and wrote of their habits were more readily satisfied with imperfect illustrations and meagre descriptions than were those who devoted their energies to exhibit the habits of animals, vipers, or fishes. It may be stated as a remarkable fact that, until recently, the ornithologist was incomparably behind his compeers in science in illustrating his department, choicest of all though it be in the varied phase of animated nature.
To Audubon is the world indebted, not only for the most magnificent work on ornithology ever produced, but also for one of the most magnificent monuments ever raised by industry and genius. Take his book, examine his drawings, read his descriptions, ponder upon his reminiscences, and then turn to the most eminent of those who have preceded him, and all instantly become tame and commonplace. It is like going from the primitive forests into the stove-heated library; it is like exchanging the moving, living, teeming bird, fluttering and flying in its native haunts, for the imperfectly preserved specimens of the museum; all is motionless, eyeless—dead.
Of the mind that has accomplished so much it is difficult to speak in exaggerated praise. It may be safely asserted that Audubon had one of the most enduring that has left any impress upon the present century. He is always clear and complete in everything he undertakes. He is profuse in his originality, and yet boldly, at times, absorbs the labor of others; yet he so entirely renovates, inspires, and makes their industry his own, that his indebtedness is unthought of by the world.
The secret of Audubon's success will be found in his close pursuit of nature; of her mysteries he has been of the truest, and therefore one of her most favored priests. No labor by him was ever withheld, no toil evaded. Turning over the pages of his works, you can trace him to the tropics, where he worships and wonders; anon, he gives the witnessed history of the solitary feathered life that inhabits those inhospitable regions where the marble blue of the eternal snow scarcely ever reflects a ray of sunshine. While you read with delight of the canvass-back duck that fell beneath his rifle in the placid waters of the Chesapeake, he is suddenly, upon another page, struggling with the gigantic albatros in the surge-lashed waters of the Californias. You read on, and become lost in the green field and gentle sloping hill; you wander beside the gently running rivulet and inland lake, and rest in the shade of honeysuckle bowers. Changing still, you are ushered into the miasmatic swamps and dark fens in which only live the blear-eyed heron and repulsive bittern; and then, lifted on the wings of imagination, you climb the embattled rocks and precipices of the Cordilleras, dividing admiration of the rising sun with the eccentric flights of the mighty vulture as he wheels downward in his greetings of the god of day. Such is Audubon, who will ever be remembered as long as mind answers in admiration and sympathy with mind. He has stamped his memory in a work, and associated his name with a family that will endure in freshness when the mightiest monuments now existing will, like the pyramids, become unmeaning heaps; for his name and immortality will ever be recalled by the fanning pinions of every feathered inhabitant of the air.