294 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



this sketch of himself, for he gave unstinted praise t< 

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

 the appearance of The Birds of America seems to 

 stimulated him to even more grandiose conceptior 

 his own merits than was usual, he declared that his 

 coveries were counted by the thousand, and that he 

 traveled twenty thousand miles, always collecting 

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

 which nature had unequivocally denied him, it is ii 

 esting to read this boast that an unfriendly critic c 

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

 figures will soon begin to be published, and be sup< 

 to those of my friend Audubon, in extent and var 

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

 as I live, in spite of all such mean attempts againsl 

 reputation and exertions, trusting in the justice of 

 eral men." 9 



After leaving Audubon at Henderson in the s 

 mer of 1818, Rafinesque passed down the Ohio ink 

 Mississippi, pausing only to pay his respects at 

 famous communistic settlement of New Harmony 

 the mouth of the Wabash in Indiana, then the al 

 of Thomas Say, David Dale Owen, and Charles 

 Sueur, all of whom have left bright and honored n* 

 in the annals of American science. He eventually 

 turned to Philadelphia by way of Lexington, Kentu 

 where he was induced to settle and teach natural 

 tory and the modern languages in the Transylv 

 University, at that time the most important sea 

 learning in the West. After closing up his busi 



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

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

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

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

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



