Retrospective Criticism, 67 



the assistance and correction of a native." (i2. B.y in VI. 



371.) 



" Tanta est discordia fratrum ! " Ovid, 



What proof of discord here we see 

 'Twixt Mr. Swainsoii and R. B. ! 



Here I beg to remark, that Audubon told Cuvier that he 

 had resided for twenty j^ears in the woods of America, living 

 in a rude hut, constructed by himself, for the purpose of 

 studying the habits of birds. Now, let us put these twenty 

 years to seventeen, and we get thirty-seven. Then let us take 

 into consideration the time which Mr. Audubon must have 

 spent in his "counting-room" in Louisville, and in buying 

 and selling goods in other places : for be it known that he 

 kept a shop for many years in the United States. This is far 

 from being a discreditable circumstance; I merely introduce 

 it to show that his avocations of a commercial nature might 

 possibly have interfered with those of a literary nature. The 

 contradictory, ungrammatical, ill-constructed paper, signed 

 " Audubon," on the habits of the turkey buzzard, which 

 appeared in JamesorHs Journal for 1826 [reviewed in VI. 

 162 — 171.]; in which paper, by the way, Mr. Swainson 

 found a " freshness and an originality," which he pronounced 

 to be " delightful to the general reader," [I. 45.] seems to bear 

 me out in my surmise. Enough. " How blind is that man," 

 said Don Quixote, " who cannot see through a sieve ! " — 

 Charles Waterton, Walton Hall, Nov, 7. 1833. 



Mr. Auduhony Jun. (VI. 550.) — How extremely forgetful 

 it was in this gentleman, when he attempted (VI. 551.) a 

 defence of his father's account of the rattlesnake, never 

 once to have alluded, in the slightest manner, to the mo- 

 mentous descent of the large American squirrel, tail fore- 

 most, down the rattlesnake's throat ! To have touched upon 

 the minor parts of that very startling narrative, and not to 

 have bestowed a solitary word on the tail-foremost feature of 

 it, is as defective in Mr. Audubon, jun., as it would be in a 

 surgeon who should try to dissect the fibrous roots only of a 

 cancer, and leave the cancer itself to eat into the vitals of his 

 unfortunate patient. Nobody doubts that rattlesnakes swallow 

 squirrels ; but every body must condemn Audubon's account 

 of a rattlesnake chasing a squirrel, and then swallowing it tail 

 foremost. Tail foremost ! Why, as long as this foul stain on 

 the page of Audubon's zoology remains unblotted out, of what 

 use is it in his son to tell me that his father has explored the 

 " Floridas, the Keys, and the Tortugas Islands?" The story 

 of the rattlesnake will alwavs appear against him, as a phan- 



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