ferent species with eyes, either open at birth, or closed for some
time after; to trace the slow progress of the young birds toward
perfection, or admire the celerity with which some of them, while
yet unfledged, removed themselves from danger to security.
I grew up, and my wishes grew with my form. These
wishes, kind reader, were for the entire possession of all that I
saw. I was fervently desirous of becoming acquainted with
nature. For many years, however, I was sadly disappointed,
and for ever, doubtless, must I have desires that cannot be gratified.
The moment a bird was dead, however beautiful it had
been when in life, the pleasure arising from the possession of
it became blunted; and although the greatest cares were bestowed
on endeavours to preserve the appearance of nature, I
looked upon its vesture as more than sullied, as requiring constant
attention and repeated mendings, while, after all, it could
no longer be said to be fresh from the hands of its Maker. I
wished to possess all the productions of nature, but I wished
life with them. This was impossible. Then what was to be
done ? I turned to my father, and made known to him my disappointment
and anxiety. He produced a book of Illustrations.
A new life ran in my veins. I turned over the leaves
with avidity; and although what I saw was not what 1 longed
for, it gave me a desire to copy nature. To Nature I went, and
tried to imitate her, as in the days of my childhood I had tried
to raise myself from the ground and stand erect, before nature
had imparted the vigour necessary for the success of such an
undertaking.
How sorely disappointed did I feel for many years, when I
saw that my productions were worse than those which I ventured
(perhaps in silence) to regard as bad, in the book given
bright foliage, I felt that an intimacy with them, not consisting
of friendship merely, but bordering on phrenzy, must accompany
my steps through life;—and now, more than ever, am I persuaded
of the power of those early impressions. They laid such
hold upon me, that, when removed from the woods, the prairies,
and the brooks, or shut up from the view of the wide
Atlantic, I experienced none of those pleasures most congenial
to my mind. None but aerial companions suited my fancy.
No roof seemed so secure to me as that formed of the. dense
foliage under which the feathered tribes were seen to resort,
or the caves and fissures of the massy rocks to which the darkwinged
Cormorant and the Curlew retired to rest, or to protect
themselves from the fury of the tempest. My father generally
accompanied my steps, procured birds and flowers for me with
great eagerness,—pointed out the elegant movements of the
former, the beauty and softness of their plumage, the manifestations
of their pleasure or sense of danger,—and the always
perfect forms and splendid attire of the latter. My valued preceptor
woidd then speak of the departure and return of birds
with the seasons, woidd describe their haunts, and, more wonderful
than all, their change of livery; thus exciting me to study
them, and to raise my mind toward their great Creator.
A vivid pleasure shone upon those days of my early youth,
attended with a calmness of feeling, that seldom failed to rivet
my attention for hours, whilst I gazed in ecstacy upon the pearly
and shining eggs, as they lay imbedded in the softest down,
or among dried leaves and twigs, or were exposed upon the
burning sand or weather-beaten rock of our Atlantic shores. I
was taught to look upon them as flowers yet in the bud. I
watched their opening, to see how Nature had provided each dif