558 APPENDIX. 



nature and habits of birds, totally unqualifies him from holding any 

 public office in such a place as the British Museum. On my return 

 to England, if I find that any of the friends of Audubon, or Audubon 

 himself, have brought me before the public in an unbecoming manner, 

 I shall not be long in taking up the club. I will review Audi bon's 

 biography of birds, in about a twenty or thirty pound pamphlet, in 

 which Swainson, and Jameson, and Macgillivray, and all his other 

 supporters shall have their ignorance brought home to them. I will 

 prove their consummate ignorance in clear terms, by showing that 

 they have held up, almost to public adoration, a man whose book of 

 birds contains unpardonable errors in every page, and has more than 

 one evident and palpable falsehood. Had his partisans been real 

 naturalists (scientific naturalists, if you will have it so), they must 

 have discovered many of these errors at first sight. Then, if they 

 did discover these errors, they acted basely in joining to gull the 

 public. If they did not discover these errors, then indeed is their 

 ignorance established beyond all doubt. Either way, they are in for 

 it. Charles Buonaparte (as you and I always called him) has been 

 twice here since I came from Naples, but I have not returned his 

 calls ; and I think that I shall not return them, for I believe the 

 farther that he and I are distant the better. An Italian marquis 

 stuffs his birds. They are just upon a par with all those wretched 

 specimens of death alive which you see in London and in Paris. 

 I had quite forgot that you informed me in one of your letters that 

 Titian Peale joined the exploring expedition. I think there would 

 be no great loss if the whole of the birds and beasts in his museum 

 were to go to the dogs. Charles Buonaparte, before I went to 

 Naples, showed me a few birds which he had received from Titian. 

 They are so ill done, and so out of shape, that I could fancy he has 

 quite forgot the instructions which I gave him when I visited the 

 United States. I left off writing, when I had finished the foregoing 

 page, and I have never been able to take up the pen again till 

 to-day, December 17. The whole of my time has been taken up, 

 from light till dark, in preserving birds, and in modelling the head 

 of a porcupine, previous to my preparing an entire one, in which I 

 could not be successful without a copy to go by. I have done a 

 duck of great beauty, never seen in England. We have lately re- 



