216 Remarks on Audubon's Biography of Birds. 



Then it must be his Biography of Birds which has raised 

 the stranger so high in the estimation of Mr. Bull? No 

 doubt whatever: and were the Biography of Birds really 

 the production of Mr. Audubon's own pen, I should not be 

 tardy in praising its literary merit, notwithstanding its ornitho- 

 logical faults. But, having compared the style of the Bio- 

 graphy of Birds with that of the article on the habits of the 

 Fultur Aura, I came to the conclusion that these two pro- 

 ductions could not have been written by the same person, 

 though they both have the name of Audubon attached to 

 them. The first is that of a finished scholar; the second 

 that of a very moderately-educated man. 



Mr. Audubon, to be sure, tells us, in his introductory 

 address, that a friend aided him ; not, says he, in writing the 

 book, but in completing the scientific details, and in smooth- 

 ing down the asperities of his ornithological biographies. I 

 confess that I cannot exactly understand how he could have 

 been aided in the scientific details, and in smoothing down 

 the asperities of the ornithological biographies, and still not 

 be considered to have been aided in writing the very book 

 which contains those details, and which had those asperities. 

 Certainly his acknowledgment of such important aid, and his 

 avowal of such humiliating corrections (the latter so totally 

 unnecessary if Mr. Audubon were really a scholar), tend to 

 put his claim both to ornithology and to literature in a some- 

 what dubious point of view, and cause me to take Professor 

 Rennie's recommendation to " read the works of Audubon " 

 cum grano salis. 



In one part of the introductory address, Mr. Audubon 

 seems to wish to impress his readers with an idea of his 

 extreme abhorrence of those who put their names to works 

 which they never wrote. He says, " There are persons 

 whose desire of obtaining celebrity induces them to suppress 

 the knowledge of the assistance which they have received in 

 the composition of their works. In many cases, in fact, the 

 real author of the drawings, or the descriptions, in books on 

 natural history is not so much as mentioned, while the pre- 

 tended author assumes to himself all the merit which the 

 world is willing to allow him. This want of candour (con- 

 tinues Mr. Audubon) I could never endure." Now, I pos- 

 sess undeniable proof that, when Mr. Audubon was in Eng- 

 land, he did actually apply to a gentleman to write his history 

 of the birds for him. The gentleman at first consented to 

 write it ; but the agreement subsequently fell to the ground, 

 on account of Mr. Audubon insisting that his own name 



