A MEETING OF RIVALS 227 



the specimen. Lawson also affirmed that in engraving 

 the plate he had worked directly from the bird which 

 Wilson had given him. 



What has become of this mysterious phantom that has 

 been a w r andering and disturbing voice among ornitholo- 

 gists for over a century? It has given rise to no end of 

 conflicting and sharp discussions between the partisans 

 of the two naturalists chiefly concerned, the only thing 

 certain being that if this supposititious species ever ex- 

 isted, it has forsaken its old haunts, if not the earth itself, 

 and has never returned. No doubt it was simply a case 

 of mistaken identity, and both Wilson and Audubon 

 were wrong, each having had in hand and mind an imma- 

 ture representative of one of our numerous Warblers, 

 which are now so much better known. 19 If Wilson 

 copied Audubon's drawing of the bird, he must have 

 replaced it with one of his own, for the figures of the 

 two naturalists are very unlike. Certainly Audubon 

 should not have made so serious a charge without offer- 

 ing more substantial evidence in proof ; perhaps what he 

 had intended to convey was that Wilson had obtained 

 from him his first knowledge of the bird, and he was 

 nettled to find that he had been studiously ignored. 20 



19 Nevertheless so careful and discerning a naturalist as Thomas Nut- 

 tall confidently asserted that his friend, Mr. M. C. Pickering, had "obtained 

 a specimen several years ago near Salem (Massachusetts)"; see A Manual 

 of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada (Cambridge, 1832). 

 Dr. Elliott Coues at one time thought that it might have been the Pine- 

 creeping Warbler, and Professor Baird identified it as the female or young 

 of the Hooded Warbler. 



20 Compare Ornithological Biography, vol. iii, p. 203, where in Audubon's 

 article on the Whooping Crane, there is this note: "Louisville, State of 

 Kentucky, March, 1810. I had the gratification of taking Alexander Wilson 

 to some ponds within a few miles of town, and of showing him many birds 

 of this species, of which he had not previously seen any other than 

 stuffed specimens. I told him that the white birds were the adults, and 

 that the grey ones were the young. Wilson, in his article on the Whooping 

 Crane, has alluded to this, but, as on other occasions, he has not informed 

 his readers whence his information came." 



