AUDUBON'S ^BNEID 305 



whose character was above reproach and who was a 

 keen naturalist himself, was Audubon's good friend, 

 and that no misunderstanding ever rose between them. 

 In writing offhand from memory, years after the events, 

 Audubon misstated the facts but evidently without 

 design. 



In 1818 Dr. Drake organized the Western Museum 

 Society, of which he said: "I have drawn up the con- 

 stitution in such a manner as to make the institution a 

 complete school for natural history, and hope to see 

 concentrated in this place, the choicest natural and arti- 

 ficial curiosities in the Western Country." The first 

 meeting of the Society was held in the summer of 1819, 

 not long before Audubon was engaged to work for it. 

 The membership fee was $50, a considerable sum for 

 that period, but the enterprise was well patronized. It 

 was in charge of a board of whom Dr. Drake was the 

 moving spirit; another member, as we have seen, was 

 Rev. Mr. Slack, who became the first president of the 

 Cincinnati College, which was organized in 1818-19. 

 The collections of the Museum were placed in one of 

 the buildings of the College in order better to serve the 

 students and public, which would account for some of 

 the confusion noted above. 



Dr. Drake's hands at this time were more than full ; 

 in October, 1819, he wrote to a friend: "The ties which 

 bind me to the world at large seem every day to increase 

 in strength and numbers. The crowd of mankind with 



"It is highly probable that the flowering of this beautiful tree, the 

 Robinia pseudocacia of Linnaeus, indicates the proper time for planting 

 the important vegetable the Indian corn. For several successive years I 

 have observed our farmers generally to plant corn during some stage of 

 its flowering. This from the 10th to the 20th of May." 



For the privilege of examining one of the original copies of this 

 paper, I am indebted to Mr. Wallace H. Cathcart of the Western Re- 

 serve Historical Society of Cleveland. 



