AUDUBON'S LILY REDISCOVERED. 677 



not to publish the next eagle you kill. Eagle-stories are almost always ' fishy.' 

 As to the number of different kinds of eagles in this country, believe me when I 

 assure you that there never have been but two species discovered in all the length 

 and breadth of this country. That famous ' bird of Washington ' was a myth. 

 Either Audubon was mistaken, or else, as some do not hesitate to affirm roundly, 

 he lied about it. The two species are, the golden eagle (Aquila chrysa'etos), and 

 the bald eagle {Haliaetus leucocephalus). 



This, surely, is somewhat terrific, and would indicate, in this in- 

 stance, that truthfulness, the bright particular flower in a man's char- 

 acter, was badly wilted. As Patrick would say, " it does'n't become 

 the loikes of us to talk back ; and maybe it cowes us, just, to be found 

 in disagramint with the great bird-doctor, who is possissed of the 

 aridition of all the fowls that iver was, sure." So we will not openly 

 differ with this accomplished man ; and will even, like a devout Mos- 

 lem, leave Audubon to those stern ladies known as the Fates, and 

 thus will hasten to another instance in which, perhaps, even a lady may 

 come to the rescue of the reputation of this remarkable naturalist. 



If possible, Audubon has suffered worse at the hands of the bota- 

 nists. From these gentlemen the famous student of the woods and 

 fields has received a snub of the shabby-genteel sort, and of the most 

 persistent character. In his " Birds of the South," and with his usual 

 love of fidelity to particulars, as indicating the plant habitat, or sur- 

 rounding, Audubon figured a yellow water-lily not that very ordi- 

 nary flower, the Nuphar advena, the spatter-dock, or yellow pond-lily, 

 so common from Canada to Florida, but a real close cousin to 

 Nymphc&a odorata, our delightful, sweet-scented water-lily. Be- 

 holding it with his own eyes, the great painter put it into one of his 

 glorious bird-pictures, and, having given the portrait of his floral 

 beauty, he also named it N~ymphwa lutea, or, in plain English, the 

 yellow water-lily. But this pretty flower had nev< r been seen by the 

 botanists ; and so, forsooth, the thing was absolutely ignored treated 

 as a pretty fable, a bit of art extravagance. Art, like history, may 

 have its anachronisms, but the real artist, though he err, cannot 

 lie. So thoroughly was that N'ymphcea lutea snubbed, that it would 

 have been as much as a poor mortal's reputation was worth to have 

 mentioned credence in the thing in the hearing of sober Science. One 

 might look in vain in any botany of the South for Audubon's yellow 

 water-lily. Not a word can you find in Darbey's " Botany of the 

 Southern States ; " and the same ominous silence pervades that later 

 and more pretentious work, Chapman's " Flora of the Southern States." 

 This luckless lily of Audubon is scientifically tabooed. Luckless, 

 was it said ? Well, this abjured beauty of the good man has fallen 

 into luck at last. When neither sought nor expected, a species of 

 poetic justice has lately been reached ; for, in the person of a lady, 

 learned in such lore, we have" a Daniel come to judgment." Last 

 summer, in Florida, Mrs. Mary Treat rediscovered the long-lost flower 



