grey plumage harmonized with the color of the bark of the tree, so that
it was impossible to see the birds except by the most careful
observation. After three weeks of such patient labor, he felt that he
had been amply rewarded for the toil and sacrifice by the results he had
obtained.

His power of observation gave him great happiness, from the time he
rambled as a boy in the country in search of treasures of natural
history, till, in his old age, he rose with the sun and went straightway
to the woods near his home, enjoying still the beauties and wonders of
Nature. His strength of purpose and unwearied energy, combined with his
pure enthusiasm, made him successful in his work as a naturalist; but it
was all dependent on the habit formed in his boyhood,--this habit of
close and careful observation; and he not only had this habit of using
his eyes, but he looked at and studied things worth seeing, worth
remembering.

This brief sketch of Audubon's boyhood shows the predominant traits of
his character,--his power of observation, the training of the eye and
hand, that made him in manhood "the most distinguished of American
ornithologists," with so much scientific ardor and perseverance that no
expedition seemed dangerous, or solitude inaccessible, when he was
engaged in his favorite study.

He has left behind him, as the result of his labors, his great book on
"The Birds of America," in ten volumes; and illustrated with four
hundred and forty-eight colored plates of over one thousand species of
birds, all drawn by his own hand, and each bird being represented in its
natural size; also a "Biography of American Birds," in five large
volumes, in which he describes their habits and customs. He was