SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 109 



he was by no means ready to defer to him wholly in 

 the matter of naming his birds, a subject in which Swain- 

 son regarded himself as the first of living authorities. 

 Swainson's pride was also wounded at Audubon's appar- 

 ent lack of appreciation of the weight which his name 

 would carry if allowed to grace the title pages of his 

 works, and he speaks of Audubon as if he were ready 

 to bargain for scientific information but determined to 

 withhold that credit which is every writer's just due. 

 It is only fair to say that Swainson's vanity seems to 

 have outrun his candor, for when the controversy over 

 the authorship of Audubon's Biography of Birds was 

 started in 1833, he publicly denied that any such pro- 

 posal had been made. 16 According to Swainson's own 

 statement, quoted earlier, Audubon was ready to grant 

 him whatever credit was due, but it is evident that he 

 was not then disposed to adopt Swainson's peculiar 

 ideas upon the classification of birds or to enter upon 

 a thoroughgoing arrangement of joint authorship. 

 Though no philosopher himself, it seems clear that the 

 American woodsman was by no means disposed to swal- 

 low all the vagaries of the "Circular System" to which 

 his friend was committed, and which was later held up 

 to ridicule. 



The craze for describing new species of animals was 

 all too common in both England and America at the time 

 of which we write; the chief aim of many naturalists 

 seems to have been to attach their names to as many 

 of nature's forms as possible. Swainson, who "never 

 went to bed without describing a new species," as Audu- 

 bon said at a later time, had admonished his friend above 

 all else to hasten to publish descriptions of every new 

 bird which he had obtained in America, lest he lose 



"See Vol. II, p. 88. 



