This great and good man, whose mind combined the vigour and elasticity of youth with the wisdom of philosophic maturity, was one of the most earnest and enthusiastic students of natural history who ever walked the earth; and his boyhood was devoted to the study of the science, which he afterwards so indefatigably pursued and splendidly illustrated.

John James Audubon was born in the year 1776, on a plantation in New France, which at that time was still a dependency of the Bourbons. His father, an officer in the French navy, had settled there to enjoy dignified leisure; and being a man of retired habits and a cultivated mind, early implanted in the breast of his son a love of those natural objects to which his time and attention were devoted through-out life with firm enthusiasm and untiring energy.

Almost in infancy he was led to take a lively interest in the winged and feathered tribes. A love of birds indeed is, in some degree, natural to the hearts of children; and assuredly no knight of romance, laying his lance in rest, with bright eyes beaming upon him, ever glowed with a purer chivalry than does the little boy, when springing from his comfortable lair on the hearth-rug to rescue the cage of his favourite songster from the perilous proximity of the prowling cat's murderous claws. But Audubon's childish affection for them was of no ordinary kind. In this, as in most cases, the character and career of the man grew out of those of the boy. His early interest in the animal creation was absorbing; and that the graceful form of birds might never be absent from his eye, he took such portraits of them as his uninstructed skill could produce

The young ornithologist was, in accordance per-haps with the custom of the more refined colonists, sent to Paris to complete his education. While there he attended schools of natural history and the arts, and was instructed in drawing by the cele-brated David; but he soon became tired of such lessons as he received. "What," he asked, "have I to do with monstrous torsos and the heads of heathen gods, when my business lies among birds?"

He therefore returned with delight to indulge in his enthralling study among the fields, woods, and rivers of his native place. A crowded and noisy city seemed to him a pestilential prison; he felt that there was a world replete with life and animation in the quiet, retired, solitary haunts of his warbling friends; and in the contemplation of their manners, customs, habits, and language, he found food for his thoughts, recreation for his mind, and subjects for his pen and pencil

On his return to America he took possession of a farm, given him by his father, on the banks of the Schuylkill, in Pennsylvania, where his taste for his favourite science strengthened and developed itself with time and study. His researches were prosecuted with unabated zeal and ardour, and his skill in drawing improved by practice. His devotion to ornithology prompted him to make excursions far and wide over the country. Arrayed in a coarse leathern dress, armed with a sure rifle, and provided with a knapsack containing sketching and colouring materials, he roamed for days, sometimes even for months at a time, in quest of animals to study and portray. His eagerness was only equalled by his patience; he would watch for hours among canes to see some plumed songstress feeding her young; he would climb precipitous mountains to mark the king of birds hovering over its nest, secure amid the strength of rocks. He braved the dreadful perils of rushing tides, and the merciless bowie-knife of the lurking Indian, in order to gratify his taste and add to his knowledge; and in pursuit of his objects, he exhibited at once the fresh soul of a child and the courageous spirit of a hero. His wanderings were among unfrequented solitudes, se-cluded waterfalls, and pathless groves; and thus, de-spising hunger, fatigue, and danger, he formed by lonely study that intimate acquaintance with the shapes and plumage of the birds of the air, which he afterwards displayed to the world in his briliant, interesting, and entertaining volumes.

Notwithstanding his devotion to ornithological studies, he early in life undertook the responsi-bilities of matrimony, and married a woman who fortunately sympathised with his tastes and appre-ciated his talents. About the same time, with a view of pursuing his investigations into nature to greater advantage, he purchased a farm in Kentucky, to which he removed. His new dwelling, surrounded by impenetrable thickets, and shadowed by boundless forests, was exactly to his liking; and he spared no pains or toil to profit by the natural treasures of its rich and magnificent neighbourhood.

On visiting England with his magnificent portfolio of drawings, he was welcomed with open arms by men of science and letters; and had such honours bestowed upon him as the learned and scientific societies had in their power to confer. This visit afterwards led to his publishing a work on ornithology, ornamented and elucidated by engravings of birds and narratives of personal adventure. He continued throughout manhood, and even in old age, as ardent in his chosen pursuits as he had been when, in the vigour of youth, braving hurricanes, fearful precipices, and yawning gulfs. At sixty he undertook an expedition to the Rocky Mountains in search of some specimens of wild animals, of which a report had been conveyed to him. Even in the last hours of his existence, when the world was fading from his view, and his clear spirit was gently taking its leave of the earth, he showed signs of his heart being touched and his imagination excited, as one of his sons held before his once penetrating gaze some of the drawings associated with the finest feelings and most cherished aspirations of other days.

He sank composedly into his long sleep, on the 27th of January, 1851; and his mortal remains were interred in Trinity Church Cemetery, near his secluded residence, quietly reposing amid oaks, and elms, and evergreen foliage. But the intelligence of his death went through the civilised world, which has profited largely by his arduous and disinter-ested labours, and which readily acknowledges the achievements of his pure and persevering genius.