560 APPENDIX. 



I got, the other day, a milk-white hedgehog. It is a perfect albino, 

 with pink eyes. The fishermen are here every day. One or two 

 of them often speak of you, and ask when you are coming again. 

 Perhaps you remember poor Sam, my servant. He died of con- 

 sumption about three months ago. What is Audubon doing ? He 

 seems to be quite forgotten here. I never hear his name mentioned, 

 or see it in print. Depend upon it, our scientific conoscenti are 

 most heartily tired of his acquaintance, and ashamed of having been 

 made his dupes. 



To the Same. 



WALTON HALL, Dec. 17, 1843. 



My dear Friend, I received your letter of the i3th of Novem- 

 ber on the first of this month, at the very time that I had Audubon's 

 " Biography of Birds" actually in my hand ; for I had imagined that 

 he might possibly come to England in order to bring out his history 

 of quadrupeds ; and if so, I was determined to be ready with a few 

 remarks on that delusive work, foreseeing that his dupes on this 

 side of the water might possibly be inclined to take up the club 

 against me. On looking into his book with an ornithological eye, 

 the first thing that strikes one is, the reasoning powers which he puts 

 into his birds ; for they are actually endowed with intelligence rela- 

 tive to their future movements equal to that of man ; secondly, the 

 impossibility of his approaching the birds sufficiently near to mark 

 down their minute economy ; thirdly, the improbability of his spend- 

 ing two days, or even one, in watching the motions of his birds, which 

 he must have done had he seen with his own eyes that which he 

 assures us he had seen. We need go no further than his history of 

 the wild turkey, in order to find sufficient proof wherewith to expose 

 his falsehoods, to condemn his ignorance, and to be astonished at 

 the audacity with which he has gulled his learned friends. How 

 can we sufficiently despise the ignorance which our naturalists con- 

 nected with Audubon have exhibited in praising a work so full of 

 palpable errors ? Look at his great owl. There you will find that 

 50 soon as it saw your great ornithologist, up went its tufted horns 



