CHAPTER XXVIII

THORNS ON THE ROSE

Contributions to magazines—Attacked in Philadelphia—Statement to Sully—The rattlesnake episode—Behavior of a Philadelphia editor—Mistaken identity in account of the reptile—Lesson of the serpent's tooth—Audubon's long lost lily rediscovered—"Nosarians and Anti-Nosarians"—Bachman and Audubon on vultures—Aim of the critics—Authorship in the _Biography_—His most persistent heckler—Pitfall of analogy.

We have seen that John James Audubon had attended the school of adversity many years before he was known to the public in either America or Europe. The difficulties inseparable from such colossal undertakings as that in which he engaged were well nigh insuperable; but to these were added others which perhaps might have been avoided but which could hardly have been foreseen. From the moment he began to write for publication, he was bitterly and persistently assailed by a number of detractors, who seemed bent upon ruining his reputation and thus undermining the work to which he was devoting his life and upon which he depended as a means of support.

Were no worthy purpose to be served, it would be folly to resurrect the animosities of a past generation, but since a few "fed fat the ancient grudge they bore him," and since this hostility, handed down through the years, is occasionally echoed at the present day, the impartial historian is left no choice; he must weigh the merits of the case to the best of his ability. The reader, I think, will find that the law of compensation has worked fairly well in respect to all these matters, for if Audubon possessed faults, he was not lacking in merits; if he was assailed by a few bitter enemies, he was supported by a host of judicious friends.

As soon as Audubon became known in England, he was importuned to contribute to the scientific magazines, and in response to this demand wrote five articles, which were published in Edinburgh and London in 1827. Some of these papers, which dealt with the habits of the Turkey Vulture, the Alligator, the Carrion Crow or Black Vulture, the Wild Pigeon, and the Rattlesnake,[54] were roundly scored in the Philadelphia press, and Audubon was called a romancer of the first order. Thomas Sully, the artist, who was then living in that city and who had taken a deep interest in the naturalist since their meeting in 1824, wrote in November, 1827, and told him what had occurred. Since Audubon's reply was practically the only answer which he ever made to attacks of this sort, and since his friend was given permission to make such use of it as he saw fit, we shall reproduce this letter nearly entire.[55] In writing to his wife on the same day Audubon said: "Now my Lucy, I am going to answer Sully's letter; it is no difficult task, so far as truth be connected with my answer, but as regards my feelings it is perhaps the severest one I have had to encounter for many years."

_Audubon to Thomas Sully_

LIVERPOOL, _Decr 22, 1837_.

MY DEAR MR. SULLY:—

I received from your truly friendly letter of the 7th. of November the long wished for intelligence that you and your family were well. I am not much astonished that in Philadelphia, remarks such as you allude to, should have been made respecting some papers on the habits of objects of Natural History, read by me to different institutions in this country, but I am grieved at it.

The greatest portion of my life has been devotedly spent in the _active_ investigation of Nature, her beauties & her objects in granting to different individuals, classes, or species, such privileges as best suit their form, situation, or habits. This arduous task I have followed with unremitting diligence, and with a degree of industry that has caused to my family and to myself more troubles than any person in Philadelphia can be aware of. For more than 20 years I have been in _the regular habit_ of writing down every day all the incidents of which I have been an _eye-witness_, on the spot, & without confiding to my memory, as many travellers have done and still do. You have read some portion of this journal, and have also been an eye-witness of many of the occurrences, and to this I now owe the gratification of possessing your esteem, but, My dear Mr. Sully, you are not the only evidence. Mr. Joseph Mason, who is now, I believe, an artist in your city, accompanied me on a hunting excursion, beginning at Cincinati, and ending in the State of Louisiana, which lasted 18 months. He drew with me; he was my _daily companion_, and we both rolled ourselves together on bufaloe robes at night. James Cummings, Esq., past captain, the author of a treatise on the navigation of the rivers Ohio and Mississippi, was one of the party, and he saw me write in my Journal, and read it frequently. Every member of my family has seen the whole of those Diaries and could readily assert the truth of the whole of their contents, to many of which they were party, present and acting.

The papers alluded to in your estimable letter, are merely copies from those journals; they were transcribed in Edinburgh, and the style corrected by patrons, who saw the originals, nearly worn out by time and the casual dampness, which journals like mine must often be exposed to. I read these papers to the different societies, of which I have the honor to be a member, and read them with a sensation of pleasure that nothing but a full persuasion of their truth could bestow.

Those persons in Philadelphia that have felt a desire to contradict my assertions cannot, without lowering themselves very much indeed affect to conceive that the members of the Wernerian Society would have listened to my "say so," without investigating the subject, even if they had not been well versed in the habits of the objects I treated of. Neither can they believe that all my acquaintance and particular friends would permit me to proceed in relating _Tales of Wonder_, which if untrue, would load me with disgrace, ruin my family, nay, prove me devoid of all honor! Could I suffer myself to be so blinded at the very moment when I am engaged in the publication of a work of unparalled magnitude, of which the _greatest naturalists and best judges_ both in America and in Europe have given the fullest praise and firmest support, & from which my very means of pecuniary comfort are to be drawn? It would certainly be highly unfair to conceive & assert that at the time whilst I was portraying individuals, animal and vegetable, I should have rambled so wide and so far from facts in a portion of science so intimately connected with & necessary to the support of those delineations, as well as to the general standing of my reputation! Mere interest would suggest a very contrary line of conduct, and I hope I am not so devoid of common sense as to lose sight of all that can render life desirable in this world or the world hereafter.

No, my dear Mr. Sully, I have written with care what I have seen, and have felt a great desire to spread the knowledge I have obtained in the great field of Science for the benefit of the world at large, and I rest content with this motto: "Le temps découvrira la vérité." To whom then, my dear Mr. Sully, can I ascribe the birth of the animadversions expressed in the papers of Philadelphia! Is their author one [who] comes avowedly forward with a life spent in the woods, loaded with facts differing in every respect from mine, one who like me can bring forth vouchers, and who can by respectable witnesses support what he says? Or, is he one, who, writing at random and without any knowledge of his subject, merely wishes to push himself into notice by a blunt denial of my veracity, and would _edify_ & _please_ some of his friends, at the price of my reputation. I think, my dear Mr. Sully, the latter much more applicable, and must belong to the author of the report current in your city.

I have not read any of the Philadelphia papers since I came to England, and do not know the tone of the attacks upon me, but judging from your friendly letter, I feel assured that the pen that traced them must have been dipped in venom more noxious than that which flows from the jaws of the rattlesnake!

To you, my dear Friend, I solemly affirm that however unnatural my observations may _appear_, they are all _facts_, without a word of exaggeration. My fate in this instance differs not from that of many others, but believe me, will differ widely from that of the illustrious Bruce; those attacks will not make me die of sorrow!

With this, my dear Friend, I will close the subject, giving you meanwhile full liberty to use this letter in any manner that may best suit your feelings, and I will now pass on to other things.

My success in the mother country continues to augment apace. I have many most valuable friends and patrons, and discovered soon after my landing that Science has no particular country. The 5th. number of my work is now published, & completes my labor for 1827. During my progress I have often received letters from highly distinguished characters, expressive of the highest approbation, & I hope by regular industry to be able to go on with the performance, with credit to myself & benefit to my family.

I shall leave this town for London in a few days, when I will convey your wishes to Robert Sully, & [when] there I hope to see the picture which you have sent to the Marquis of Wellesley....

The attack referred to in the letter just quoted was called forth by Audubon's unfortunate paper on the Rattlesnake,[56] which was read before the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh in the winter of 1827 and published by Robert Jameson in the _New Philosophical Journal_ in April of that year. The controversy then started was long and bitter, while the merits of neither side were ever fully established; in the history which follows we shall see that the naturalist was, on the whole, more sinned against than sinning.

In July, 1828, Dr. Thomas P. Jones[57] appropriated Audubon's Rattlesnake article, and published it without acknowledgment in the _Franklin Journal and American Mechanics' Magazine_ at Philadelphia. It should be noticed that at the close of 1827 Audubon's famous plate of the Mocking Birds defending their nest against the sinister designs of this formidable reptile had also been published in London. In this remarkable picture the rattlesnake was represented coiled about the nest, at the fatal moment when ready to strike its bold defenders, and in a tree. The anomaly was apparent, for the climbing habits of rattlesnakes were not then generally understood. This circumstance, together with some of Audubon's notes, repeated in certain cases from stories current in rural communities, furnished his detractors with a powerful lever, which they seized with avidity; snakes coiled in trees seemed suddenly to have produced a brood of another order which lurked in the grass, and it was many years before Audubon heard the last of his snake stories. The attack in the American press was laid to the door of George Ord, and it was not long before it was renewed with great vigor by his friend and correspondent in England, Charles Waterton, who proclaimed Audubon as a new and greater Münchhausen.[58]

Dr. Jones immediately repudiated the article which he had unceremoniously appropriated, and under the title of "The Romance of the Rattlesnake" inserted the following notice in the August number of his magazine:[59]

Just as the Editor was leaving Philadelphia for Washington, he was pressed for "more copy" by his printer, and hastily marked some articles for insertion, among which were "Notes on the Rattlesnake," by John James Audubon, F.R.S.E., M.W.S., &c. Time did not admit of reading the article, but it was seen that the writer professed to offer the "fruits of many years' observation, in countries where snakes abound." This with his titles, and the bold and splendid assurances which we had seen respecting the publication of his works, served as a password to his tissues of falsehoods, which would have been expunged from the proof, but for absence from the press.

We had determined to publish a notice like the foregoing, when we received a note from a scientific friend, whose remarks are, at once, so pointed and correct, and so fully express our own ideas upon the subject, that we gladly adopt and insert them.

It is a tissue of the grossest falsehoods ever attempted to be palmed upon the credulity of mankind, and it is a pity that any thing like countenance should be given to it, by reproducing it in a respectable Journal. The romances of Audubon rival those of Münchausen, Mandeville, or even Mendez de Pinto, in the total want of truth, however short they may fall of them in the amusement they afford.

This was rather a stiff charge to be made flatly against the reputation of any one without the most careful investigation, even upon the authority of "a scientific friend." Let us see, then, what basis, if any, really existed for such sweeping charges. In the paper which caused the trouble Audubon had described in great detail how he had seen a large rattlesnake pursue, capture, kill by constriction, and devour a gray squirrel. Before quoting his description of this singular encounter, we shall recall a passage which Audubon wrote in his journal at the time when it occurred,[60] when he was at "Oakley," the plantation of James Pirrie at St. Francisville, Bayou Sara, in the summer of 1821: "August 25. Finished drawing a very fine specimen of a rattlesnake, which measured five feet and seven inches, weighed six and a quarter pounds, and had ten rattles. Anxious to give it a position most interesting to a naturalist, I put it in that which the reptile commonly takes when on the point of striking madly with its fangs." After describing a rough dissection which he made of the rattlesnake's dental arsenal and poison apparatus, he added: "The heat of the weather was such that I could devote only sixteen hours to the drawing." The drawing thus referred to was undoubtedly used in the composition of his celebrated plate.

To revert now to a mooted passage in Audubon's published paper:

Rattlesnakes hunt and secure for their prey, with ease, grey squirrels that abound in our woods; therefore they must be possessed of swiftness to obtain them. Having enjoyed the pleasure of beholding such a chase in full view in the year 1821, I shall detail its circumstances. Whilst lying on the ground to watch the habits of a bird that was new to me, previous to shooting it, I heard a smart rustling not far from me, and turning my head that way, saw, at the same moment, a grey squirrel full grown, issuing from a thicket, and bouncing off in a straight direction, in leaps of several feet at a time, and, not more than twenty feet behind, a rattlesnake of ordinary size, pursuing, drawn apparently out to its full length, and sliding over the ground so rapidly that, as they both moved away from me, I was at no loss to observe the snake gain upon the squirrel. The squirrel made for a tree, and ascended to its topmost branches as nimbly as squirrels are known to do. The snake performed the same task considerably more slowly, yet so fast that the squirrel never raised its tail nor barked, but eyed the enemy attentively as he mounted and approached. When within a few yards the squirrel leaped to another branch, and the snake followed by stretching full two-thirds of its body, whilst the remainder held it securely from falling. Passing thus from branch to branch, with a rapidity that astonished me, the squirrel went in and out of several holes, but remained in none, knowing well that, wherever its head could enter, the body of its antagonist would follow; and, at last, much exhausted and terrified, took a desperate leap, and came to the earth with legs and tail spread to the utmost to ease the fall. That instant the snake dropt also, and was within a few yards of the squirrel before it began making off. The chase on land again took place, and ere the squirrel could reach another tree, the snake had seized it by the back near the occiput, and soon rolled itself about it in such a way that, although I heard the cries of the victim, I scarcely saw any portion of its body. So full of its ultimate object was the snake, that it paid no attention to me, and I approached it to see in what manner it would dispose of its prey. A few minutes elapsed, and I saw the reptile loosening gradually and opening its folded coils, until the squirrel was left entirely disengaged, having been killed by suffocation. The snake then raised a few inches of its body from the ground, and passed its head over the dead animal in various ways to assure itself that life had departed; it then took the end of the squirrel's tail, swallowed it gradually, bringing first one and then the other of the hind legs parallel with it, and sucked with difficulty, and for some time, at them and the rump of the animal, until its jaws became so expanded, that, after this, it swallowed the whole remaining parts with apparent ease.

Audubon then described the appearance that the snake presently assumed, which suggested "a rouleau of money, brought from both ends of a purse towards its centre," and its ineffectual attempts to move off; "when having cut a twig," he continued, "I went up to it, and tapped it on the head, which it raised, as well as its tail, and began for the first time to rattle."

Now every careful reader of this remarkable story, provided he is at all conversant with the habits of snakes, will perceive that it could not possibly have been invented, for it is strictly and minutely in accord with facts, except in one important particular; the snake whose behavior Audubon watched and so accurately described was not the rattlesnake, but the blue racer or black snake (_Bascanion constrictor_); substitute "blue racer," for "rattlesnake," and this record is photographically correct.[61] The black snake does all the things which are here so minutely described—pursuing its prey with astounding agility, constricting about it as a prelude to swallowing it, ascending trees readily, coiling when brought to bay as if about to strike, and even vibrating the tip of its tail on the ground or leaves, as if in emulation of the genuine rattler, a kind of behavior which was looked upon by Darwin as a case of protective mimicry. No one could have known the rattlesnake better than Audubon from his constant encounters with it in the field; he made drawings of it, dissected its poison apparatus, and had kept it for months in confinement in order to study its habits; but by some curious twist of his notes or his memory, or led astray by the record made of the rattling habit, the species became confused in his published account. His error was gross and he paid dearly for it, but it certainly does not prove him to be the king of nature fakirs.

Audubon's critics were probably right in affirming that the rattlesnake never ascends trees for the purpose of destroying birds, but some overshot the mark by denying that the reptile was able to climb at all. Nor could it have been said with greater justice that the brilliant but sluggish coral snake (_Elaps fulvius_), which Audubon had also placed in a tree,[62] really never aspires to this distinction. When the snake controversy was waxing warm in America, a number of Audubon's friends, including Colonel John J. Abert[63] and Richard C. Taylor,[64] investigated the question and proved that the rattlesnake was a ready climber at certain times of the year and under certain conditions, a fact which is now better known. Mr. Taylor's party in the course of explorations in the Alleghanies killed forty-one large rattlesnakes during the month of August on a single ridge bordering the Lycoming Valley, and in rendering his report, this geologist said: "I have repeatedly endeavored to verify Mr. Audubon's account of the rattlesnake ascending trees, which has been confirmed."

We have already referred to Audubon's meeting with Thomas Cooper at Columbia, South Carolina, in October, 1833. This versatile man, sometime English lawyer, revolutionist in France, friend of Priestley, judge in the Court of Common Pleas of Pennsylvania, professor of chemistry in Dickinson College as well as in the University of Pennsylvania, and at this time president of South Carolina College at Columbia, was able to confirm Audubon's account of the climbing habit of the rattlesnake, and probably wrote this statement at his request:

_Thomas Cooper to Audubon_

COLUMBIA S. CAROLINA _Octr 21. 1833_

MR AUDUBON

DEAR SIR

About three weeks ago, my son and two of my black servants, observed a very large rattle snake climbing up the fence that separates my garden from the road, at my country house. The snake put himself in the attitude of striking; whereupon one of the men ran for a gun, and shot the snake on the last rail but one of the fence. The snake was 4.3 long; as thick as my wrist, and had seven rattles.

I am Dear Sir Your obedient servant

THOMAS COOPER

Waterton maintained that Audubon's drawing of the rattlesnake, to which we have referred, was a monstrosity, "a fabulous Hydra, with its eyes starting out of their sockets," and a point repeatedly ridiculed was his representation of the fangs as slightly recurved, or bent up at their tips. Who had ever heard of such an anomaly? Certainly not the doughty lord of "Walton Hall," who declared that the fangs of poisonous snakes were always curved like a scythe, with their points bent downwards. Waterton prided himself on his knowledge of these reptiles, and certainly was not lacking in self-confidence. According to his own account, he went eleven months in the forests of Brazil without shoe or stocking to his foot, and on a certain occasion in London secured with his hands and removed from its cage a live rattlesnake; but, like so many sophisticated writers on natural history, he took to analogy like a duck to water.

Waterton's statement sounds plausible enough, but obviously could be proved only by extensive observations and comparisons. When Audubon was proceeding up Galveston Bay to Houston, Texas, in the spring of 1837, with his son, John, and Edward Harris, they stopped at the plantation of Colonel James Morgan, near Red Fish Bar. "There, among other rarities," said he, "we procured a fine specimen of the climbing rattlesnake with _recurved_ fangs, which with several others of the same kind, is now in my possession."[65] In writing to Thomas M. Brewer, from Charleston, on June 12 of this year, he alluded to this subject as follows: "I must not forget to say to you that I had the good fortune to procure specimens of my 'Climbing Rattlesnake with DOUBLE _recurved fangs_' which, I am told, will prove a new genus! and therefore the Messrs. Ord and Waterton—_good souls!_—will be perfectly delighted at the sight of this strange reptile."[66] Unfortunately a large part of Audubon's collections made upon this expedition were lost. I have seen no other reference to this extraordinary peculiarity, and there the matter seems to have rested until the present time.

Audubon's judgment or memory might play him false, but his pencil, in such a matter, could be relied upon to tell the truth. It is therefore a pleasure to be able to confirm his accuracy in reference to the serpent's tooth, for the true representation of which he was roundly abused during his lifetime. The reader will perceive the point by examining the accompanying photograph, which represents the skull of a large diamond-backed specimen from Florida.[67] In the prairie rattlesnake, and probably in some others, the fangs are sickle-shaped, as Waterton maintained, but upwards of eleven species of rattlesnakes have been found on the continent of North America, and, true to Audubon's disputed drawing and account, in this Florida specimen the fangs are _slightly_, but _very distinctly, bent upwards at their tips_! Let nature writers, inclined to the easy path of analogy, remember the rattlesnake's fang, for it teaches a salutary lesson.

As I have not hesitated to speak of Audubon's real or supposed mistakes, I will give another and more striking instance of his tardy vindication. In his plate of the American Swan (No. ccccxi), which was published in 1838, there is represented a yellow water lily, under the name of _Nymphaea lutea_. Since this lily was then quite unknown to botanists, it was ignored and treated as a fable, or as an extravagant vagary of the naturalist's imagination, until the summer of 1876, when it was rediscovered in Florida by Mrs. Mary Treat. Audubon's long lost lily was then identified and acknowledged by Professor Asa Gray, the botanist, who, with poetic justice, proposed to rename it after the discredited enthusiast, in view of the fact that it had been originally discovered and faithfully depicted by him a generation before.

While the snake controversy was acute in America, another of a purely academic character, which assumed even wider proportions, was started on the smelling powers of the vulture. We have already seen a reference to this in the naturalist's letter to his son, Victor, written at Charleston, where he was conducting with Bachman a new series of experiments to settle the question.[68] The idea, commonly accepted, that the scavengers of the Southern States were possessed of a keenness of scent comparable with that of a beagle hound, had been vigorously combated by Audubon, who showed by numerous experiments[69] that they were guided to their prey by the sense of sight only; thus it was found that they would come readily to the effigy of a calf or sheep painted on canvas and set up in plain view, or to a skin stuffed with straw, but failed to detect their quarry when the dead bodies of these animals were placed on the ground and screened from their eyes, if only by the thinnest cover, though the carrion was calling loudly to the nose but a fraction of an inch away. An attack by Waterton,[70] who hurried to the fray whenever a statement in his jealously guarded _Wanderings_ was called in question, led to a lively tilt, in which the advocates of the nose and the eyes were sometimes humorously referred to as the "Nosarians" and the "Anti-Nosarians," some of the most eminent anatomists of the day eventually taking part.

Bachman felt keenly the aspersions which were cast upon his friend, and in the winter of 1833 he undertook with Audubon the series of experiments to which we have referred. The tests which were then made supported Audubon's statements in every particular, and the faculty of the Medical College of South Carolina were invited as a body to witness them; this they did willingly, and the following memorial signed by all the witnesses present was published by Bachman in 1834.[71]

We, the subscribers, having witnessed several of the experiments made on the habits of the vultures of South Carolina (_Cathartes aura_ and _C. atratus_), commonly called the turkey buzzard and the carrion crow, feel assured that these species respectively are gregarious, the individuals of each species associating and feeding together; that they devour fresh as well as putrid food of any kind, and that they are guided to their food altogether through their sense of sight, and not of smell.

In a letter written to Ord, on March 4, 1834, Waterton said:

You will see that the Charleston parson [Bachman], Doctors, Surgeons and Professors are up in arms against me and are determined to cut off the Vulture's nose. But do not be alarmed for me, I promise you that I will answer them to your heart's content and tomorrow I shall send up a paper to Loudon for his May number which will make your Philosophers appear very small and put Audubon's claim to literature and ornithology in so clear a light that no one will be in doubt hereafter.... Audubon's gulled friends and supporters in London are in the highest spirits and feel sure that I cannot answer the Charleston letter. By the first of May next their crowing will cease.

When anatomists came to consider the question and found that well developed olfactory lobes and nerves were present in these birds, they favored the theory of smell,[72] and Edinger has more recently expressed the opinion that this consideration renders the possession of an olfactory sense in such birds highly probable. His contention is weakened, however, by the fact that granivorous and insectivorous birds also possess true olfactory nerves, and yet are proved by experiment to have little or no effective sense of smell. It is a problem for students of behavior to solve, and so far as the American vultures are concerned, Audubon's and Bachman's experiments, I believe, have never been repeated or extended with sufficient care to settle the question. The little that has been done, however, suggests that while the vulture in its daily and never ending search for food is mainly guided by its keen eyes, the nose, possibly, may be a coöperating factor when the wind and other conditions are favorable.

While critics were driving the pen, Audubon was hard at work in the field, but his friends did not long remain silent. Favorable notices of his work, actual or prospective, had appeared in the scientific and literary press of England, by David Brewster, Robert Jameson, William Swainson, and "Christopher North" of _Blackwood's Magazine_. The first American notice appeared in the _American Journal of Science_ for 1829, and this was followed by G. W. Featherstonhaugh, the English geologist, in his recently established but short-lived _Monthly American Journal of Geology and Natural Science_, to which we have already referred.[73] A little later the London _Athenæum_ gave the first of eleven extended articles on Audubon's work; in reviewing his second volume of letterpress, which appeared in 1834, the writer said: "There is amply sufficient remaining in Audubon's pages for fully a dozen more notices, were we disposed to follow the exhausting system. We have admired Audubon's gorgeous drawings, but our interest in them has been increased a thousand fold, in knowing that they are the spoils of a life's campaign."[74] Again a series of able articles was started by a just critic, W. B. O. Peabody, in the _North American Review_ for April, 1832.[75] Featherstonhaugh deserves credit for having given Audubon a fair hearing at a critical time, when baiting the American Woodsman was a popular pastime in certain circles at Philadelphia; in reviewing the _Ornithological Biography_ in 1832, this plain spokesman gave what he called "a true history of a conspiracy, got up to utterly break down and ruin the reputation of one of the most remarkable men America ever produced."[76]

Audubon's silence under fire of hostile criticism tempted someone in the capacity of a reporter to call on him in London to obtain, if possible, a personal statement, but his lips were then sealed and he would only say: "Had I wished to invent marvels, I need not have stirred from my garret in New York or London." However, in writing to Featherstonhaugh from Bulowville, East Florida, December 31, 1831, Audubon made this comment:[77]

If I did not believe the day to be gone by when it was necessary to defend my snake stories, I could send you many curious accounts of the habits of those reptiles; and I should do it, if it were not that I might be thought to enjoy—too much that triumph which the feeble hostility of three or four selfish individuals has forced upon me. I receive so many acts of real friendship and disinterested kindness, that, I thank God, there is no room left in my heart to cherish unkind feelings towards any one. Indeed, I am not now so much surprised at the incredulity of persons who do not leave cities, for I occasionally hear of things which even stagger me, who am so often a denizen of woods and swamps. What do you think of rattlesnakes taking to the water, and swimming across inlets and rivers? I have not seen this, but I believe it; since the most respectable individuals assure me they have frequently been eye-witnesses of this feat. I can conceive of inducements which reptiles may have for traversing sheets of water to gain dry land, especially in a country much intersected by streams, and subject to inundations, which compel them to be often in the water. In such countries, it is not an uncommon occurrence to find snakes afloat and at great distances from the shore. This appears, no doubt, surprising to those who live where there is almost nothing but dry land; still they ought to be good natured, and believe what others have seen. It has now been made notorious, that numerous respectable individuals, whom duty, or the love of adventure, have led into the woods of our country, have often seen snakes—and the rattlesnake too—in trees; the good people, therefore, who pass their lives in stores and counting houses, ought not to contradict these facts, because they do not meet with rattlesnakes, hissing and snapping at them from the paper mulberries, as they go home to their dinners....

Audubon's most persistent heckler was Charles Waterton,[78] who during two of his most prolific years, 1833 and 1834, published no less than fourteen lucubrations against the "foreigner," and "stranger" as the American was called; all were characterized by quizzing interrogatories, shallow criticism and personal vituperation, for the most part unworthy of serious consideration. Long noted for his eccentricities, Waterton had little or no standing among English zoölogists, against many of whom, from time to time, he issued broadsides or breezy polemics, whenever their statements cast a shadow on his _Wanderings_. Some of these accusing articles were answered by Victor Audubon and other friends of the naturalist, but they never drew his own fire; probably they benefited him in the end, for when it appeared that the charges brought against him were in large measure the work of envious calumniators, a strong current set in his favor on both sides of the Atlantic.

When Audubon's name was first proposed for membership in the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, it was rejected, according to report, through the influence of George Ord and a few of his partisans, while Waterton, who was Mr. Ord's close friend and correspondent, affirmed that Audubon was rejected by the Society on the strength of Alexander Wilson's personal diary,[79] a statement which appears to be utterly incredible.[80]

In 1833, two years after the first volume of Audubon's "Biography of Birds" had made its appearance, Waterton raised another controversy, in this instance with ammunition supplied by his friend, George Ord of Philadelphia. He boldly proclaimed[81] that Audubon was not the author of the work which bore his name, a charge similar to that which had been brought to the door of the French ornithologist, Le Vaillant, whose history resembled Audubon's in many ways. "I request the English reader," said Waterton, "to weigh well in his own mind what I have stated, and I flatter myself that he will agree with me, when I affirm that the correct and elegant style of composition which appears through the _whole of the Biography of Birds_ cannot possibly be that of him whose name it bears." Waterton maintained that, while Audubon's earlier papers were the work of an illiterate person, his _Biography_ betrayed the hand of a finished scholar from beginning to end. In a reply to Victor Audubon, written July 6, 1833,[82] Waterton declared, upon the authority of George Ord, whom he quoted, that William Swainson had been importuned to write Audubon's work for him, but declined when Audubon insisted upon his own name being given to the world as author. This direct accusation called forth an immediate explanation from Swainson, who said:[83]

In reply to that gentleman (G. Ord, Esq.), regarding the assistance it was expected I should have given my friend, Mr. Audubon, in the _scientific_ details of his work, my reply was, that the negotiation had been broken off from an unwillingness that my name should be printed on the title-page. I was not asked to write the work, nor did Mr. Audubon "insist upon his own name being given to the world as the author" of such parts as he wished me to undertake.... I have read Mr. Audubon's original manuscripts, and I have read Mr. Waterton's original manuscripts. I think the English of one is as good as the English of the other—but here the comparison ends."

The controversy thus started did not reflect much credit on Audubon's detractors, but reverberations of the charge were heard at a much later day.

Robert Bakewell, the geologist, who was a relative of Mrs. Audubon, then living at Hampstead, entered this controversy, and in June, 1833, replied[84] to one of Waterton's fulminations, which he attributed to envy and jealousy, saying that posterity would regard Audubon as "the most distinguished ornithologist of the present age."

Charles Waterton began his travels at eighteen, but early settled down to a life of leisurely independence on his ancestral estate in Yorkshire, where he studied birds to little purpose and wrote extensively on natural-history subjects; he is best known for his _Wanderings_,[85] which has passed through numerous editions and is still read. From youth Waterton enjoyed exceptional advantages, and according to one of his biographers, "lived to extreme old age without having wasted an hour or a shilling." He was the twenty-seventh "lord of Walton Hall," the manor house of the family, which stood on an island in a lake; the estate of 260 acres was mainly converted into a preserve for wild birds. His young wife died in 1829, after having given birth to a son, and he lived on his paternal acres in semi-retirement ever after. It was said that Waterton would never don evening clothes or a black coat, but insisted on wearing a blue frock with gold buttons until an anxious policeman in the neighboring village of Wakefield persuaded him to make a change; he told the Reverend J. G. Wood in 1863 that he had been bled 160 times, mostly by his own hand. When, in his sixty-ninth year, he had the misfortune to fall from a pear tree and break an elbow joint, the first remedy tried was the extraction of thirty ounces of blood; shortly after this a careless servant withdrew a chair as he was seating himself at table, and thirty more ounces were immediately required. The wage of one of his laborers is said to have sufficed for his personal needs, and his sleeping apartment had neither bed, chair, nor carpet; he lay on bare boards, wrapped in a blanket, with an oaken block for pillow; and he is said to have never tasted fermented liquor and to have eaten but sparingly of meat. His daily habit was to retire at eight and rise at three o'clock in the morning, and he was always dressed by four; an ardent Roman Catholic, he would spend an hour at devotion in his private chapel; he then read Latin and Spanish authors, wrote his polemics against Audubon or any others with whom he came in conflict, and received the reports of his bailiff, all before breakfast, which was at eight o'clock; the remainder of the day was mostly devoted to his birds and other animals, to preserve which he surrounded his entire estate with a high rampart of stone, said to have cost, all told, $50,000.

Though a devout Romanist, as someone has remarked, Waterton never hesitated to adopt the same mode of reasoning which Hume had employed in his argument against miracles. Thus he rejected with scorn Edward Jenner's account of how the young parasitic Cuckoo, when but a day old and hardly able to stand, turned out of their nest its rightful occupants. This account, which was generally accepted then, and has been repeatedly verified and recorded by the camera since, "carries," said Waterton, "its own condemnation, no matter by whom related, or by whom received." Trusting to analogy again, he maintained that Audubon's description of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird gluing bits of lichen to the surface of its nest with saliva was false, because "the saliva of all birds immediately mixes with water," and the first shower of rain would immediately undo the work of the bird. No account was taken of the Chimney Swift, which not only glues together the twigs of its nest but secures the whole to a support through an abundant salivary secretion, although this habit had long been known. In the instance of this hummingbird, however, both Audubon and Waterton were partly right and partly wrong, as a careful examination of the nests of five species of hummingbirds, including the Ruby-throat, has clearly shown.[86] It proved that saliva was only casually used on the surface of the nest, the lichens in the case referred to being adherent by means of spiders' silk and fine vegetable fibers of various sorts; the saliva of the Ruby-throat, when dry, moreover, was found to be practically insoluble in cold water, even after an immersion of several days; but more interesting than this is the fact that the nest itself is _glued_ to its supporting twig by a large _salivary wafer_, which represents this hummingbird's first step in the work of nest construction.

Shortly after his arrival at Edinburgh, and before he had published anything, Audubon wrote in his journal on November 5, 1826: "I returned home early and found a note from Mr. John Gregg, who came himself later, bringing me a scrubby letter from Charles Waterton," so it would appear that the lord of "Walton Hall" had been warned to keep an eye on the dangerous American, and Waterton's American correspondent was Mr. Ord, of Philadelphia. Later on Waterton wrote to Swainson an extraordinary letter of some four thousand words,[87] afterwards published in his _Essays on Natural History_, which for petty vanity and personal animosity has seldom been surpassed, but with this effort his ammunition seems to have been exhausted.

Charles Waterton, who lived to his eighty-third year, and who wrote nineteen polemics against Audubon and his friends, was probably sincere in his attacks upon the American Woodsman, whom he seems to have regarded as a dangerous charlatan. Waterton was a curious compound of fearless independence, kindness, credulity, pedantry, vanity, and intolerance. He should be given credit, however, for having done much to spread abroad a love of natural history and for his attitude towards an artificial system of classification, then much in vogue, which, though only an amateur, he had the good sense to reject.