As Audubon and his companions landed, an unusual excitement seemed to prevail, which, with reason, they attributed to the curiosity raised among the good people by their arrival, as with arrows and hunting accoutrements, in guise half Indian, half civilized, they made their appearance. In return for the interest they excited, they met, however, with kind greetings and abundance of good cheer. Grateful for the welcome, on betaking themselves at nightfall again to their floating habitations, they serenaded with repeated glees and madrigals the amiable inhabitants of the village; who on the following day sent a deputation to request that the whole party would favour with their company a ball, which was to take place in the evening; desiring, also, that in order to give additional zest to the festivities, they would bring their musical instruments. At the fashionable hour of ten o'clock, accordingly, the party-some carrying flutes, others violins, and Audubon a flageolet stuck in his pocket-were lighted to the dancing hall(the ground floor of a fisherman's house) by

paper lanterns.

The hostess, completely at her ease and en négligé, like the apartment, curtseyed with the agility if not with the elegance of a Cerito, and full of activity, as well as intent on cordiality, proceeded in the presence of her visitors to arrange

matters for their comfort. Perambulating the apartment, she held in one hand a bunch of candles, in the other a lighted torch, distributing the candles along the wall, and by the application of the torch producing a blaze of illumination. She then proceeded to empty the contents of a tin vessel into a number of glasses, placed on the only table in the room.

The chimney, black and capacious, was ornamented around and above with coffee-pots, milkbowls, cups and saucers, and all the et cetera necessary for the festival.

Some primitive wooden benches were placed around the apartment for the accommodation of the belles of the village.

It was not long before the Arctic beauties appeared, flourishing in the rosy exuberance which proved the beneficial influence of a northern climate. Their decorations might have vied with the Queen of Otaheite herself, in possession of brilliant beads, feathers, gaudy flowers, and flowing ribbons, which mingled with their ebony tresses, and ornamented their finely-developed forms. Soon arrived their partners, who, returning from fishing, skipped up, without ceremony, a kind of partially screened loft adjoining the room of assembly, to exchange their drenched garments for apparel more suited to the elegant usages of the dance.

VISIT TO PICTOU.

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At each pause of the musicians, refreshments were handed round, not the slightest surprise being manifested at the evident alacrity with which glasses of pure rum were swallowed by the robust ladies of that inclement clime.

To the surprise of Audubon, who naturally supposed them to be entirely free from mauvaise honte, some of them whom he and his companions afterwards met in their rambles, fled from them like "gazelles before jackalls.” One bearing a pitcher of water, dropped it, and ran to the woods.

Another in search of a cow, took to the water, and waded through it more than waist deep, and then made for home with the speed of a frightened hare. So marvellous is the transformation effected by the genial influence of that extraordinary occurrence-a ball in that portion of Newfoundland.

After a few days of delightful wanderings over the mossy hills, and many a pleasant row up the indentures of the beautiful bay of St. George, he bade adieu to the rude, but most hospitable English and French of that isolated port, and a few days of easy sailing saw the Ripley at anchor a few miles from Pictou, and a boat, containing all the party but the captain and crew of the schooner, was pulled cherrily on to the beach, where Audubon, followed by

the youths of the expedition, having hired a cart from the nearest farmer, to bring their baggage, walked, with his long strides, some twelve miles into town, there to be taken by the hand, and receive the friendship of Professor McCulloch and his sons. · The whole collection of these gentlemen was placed at his disposal, and one or two exceedingly rare species he accepted, though what he most prized, were notes of the observations of birds, made by Thomas McCulloch. But October was at hand, and he traversed rapidly the road towards Windsor, and on a substantial, but slow British steamer, he proceeded down the Bay of Fundy (on its extraordinary ebb of 80 feet in height at Windsor) to St. Johns, New Brunswick, where he was received with cheerful welcome by Edward Harris, Esq., his old and good friend, who had come from Philadelphia to await his return to Eastport, Maine. Many were the kindly greetings he received, as once again he travelled to New York, there to meet his wife, and, with her, to loiter slowly on through the inland route, to Charleston, to fulfil a promise to his friend, the Rev. Dr. Backmanthat he would again visit him before a return to Europe. This winter was to him alternate hard work, and the relaxation of the gun and chase, enjoyed with “Friend Backman,” at the homes

of the hospitable, warm-hearted, South Carolinians; so happy were those days, that Dr. Backman was want to sigh, and say: “Ah, old man, this is too much happiness for this world—it makes us forget ourselves.” But he rested not; and we find him once again in London, where he, with his eldest son, assorted the drawings, made during two years absence, into numbers; and, making his final arrangements as to what birds were still wanted from the works of

previous authors, he returned to Edinburgh, his favourite resort in Great Britain, where he published the third volume of the Ornithological Biographies.

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