294 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



this sketch of himself, for he gave unstinted praise to the 

 work in which it was published. As late as 1832, when 

 the appearance of The Birds of America seems to have 

 stimulated him to even more grandiose conceptions of 

 his own merits than was usual, he declared that his dis- 

 coveries were counted by the thousand, and that he had 

 traveled twenty thousand miles, always collecting and 

 drawing. In view of the fact that drawing was a talent 

 which nature had unequivocally denied him, it is inter- 

 esting to read this boast that an unfriendly critic drew 

 forth: "My illustrations of 30 years' travels, with 2,000 

 figures will soon begin to be published, and be superior 

 to those of my friend Audubon, in extent and variety, 

 if not equal in beauty. I shall study and write as long 

 as I live, in spite of all such mean attempts against my 

 reputation and exertions, trusting in the justice of lib- 

 eral men." 9 



After leaving Audubon at Henderson in the sum- 

 mer of 1818, Rafinesque passed down the Ohio into the 

 Mississippi, pausing only to pay his respects at the 

 famous communistic settlement of New Harmony, by 

 the mouth of the Wabash in Indiana, later the abode 

 of Thomas Say, David Dale Owen, and Charles Le 

 Sueur, all of whom have left bright and honored names 

 in the annals of American science. He eventually re- 

 turned to Philadelphia by way of Lexington, Kentucky, 

 where he was induced to settle and teach natural his- 

 tory and the modern languages in the Transylvania 

 University, at that time the most important seat of 

 learning in the West. After closing up his business 



9 Reply to a criticism of G. W. Featherstonhaugh (The Monthly Ameri- 

 can Journal of Geological Science), in Rafinesque's Atlantic Journal and 

 Friend of Knowledge, No. 3, p. 113 (Philadelphia, 1832). Rafinesque occa- 

 sionally spoke of meeting "my friend Audubon," who, he declared, had 

 invited him to join his expedition to Florida in 1831-32. 



