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than those which ventured (perhaps iR slence) to regard as bad, in the book given me by my father My pencil gave birth to a family of cripples. So maimed were most of them that they resembed the mangled corpses on field of battle compared with the integrity of living men. These difficulties and dsappointments irrtated me, but never for moment destroyed the desire of obtaining perfect representa- tions of Nature. The worse my drawings were, the more beautiful did see the originals. To have been torn from the study, would have been death to My time entirely occupied with it. Iproduced hundreds of these rude sketches annually, and for

 long time, at my request, they made bonires on the anniversaries of my birth day"

 Whilst yet boy, he was sent to Paris, and studied drawing under David. "Eyes and noses belonging

 giants, and heads of horses represented in ancient sculpture, were my models. These. although fit sub

 ects for men intent pursuing the higher branches of the art were immediately laid aside by me !" and at the age of seventeen he returned from France to the woods of the New World with fresh ardor and commenced a collection of drawings under the title of the Birds of America" His father gave him beautiful Plantation" in Pennsylvania, refreshed during the summer heats by the waters ofthe Schuy kill river aad traversed by the creek named Peikio- ming. Its fine woodlands, its extensive fields, its hills crowned with evergreens offered many subjects for his pencil There too he married-and children were born unto him, whom he did not love the less ardently and deeply because of his love of the flow CTS of the field and the birds of the air. In all his subsequent struggles with uncertain, ifnot with evil

 fortune, when all other friends drowned, and were too ready to blame his passion for ornthology, by which they say that money might be lost but not won his own family still approved of his pursuits, and cheered and cherished his enthusiasm. that was it's own reward. His residence at the Pennsylvania Plantation short as sweet; and for twenty years his life was succession ofvicisstudss. Yet amidst