328 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



through this excellent man's interest that Audubon met 

 the leading artists and scientific men of the city, in- 

 cluding Thomas Sully, Robert and Rembrandt Peale, 

 Richard Harlan, Charles Le Sueur, and Charles L. 

 Bonaparte, the latter then a rising young ornithologist 

 of one and twenty. It was Bonaparte who introduced 

 Audubon to the Academy of Natural Sciences, where 

 his drawings were exhibited and generally admired. 

 Among his critics on that occasion was George Ord, 

 who from their first interview seems to have looked upon 

 the new luminary with jealous eyes. Whether this was 

 true or not, there is no doubt that Ord became one of 

 his few really bitter and implacable adversaries, and 

 not many days elapsed before Audubon came to feel 

 that many in Philadelphia would be glad to see him 

 return to the backwoods of the Middle West, from 

 which, like an apple of Sodom, he seemed suddenly to 

 have dropped into their midst. Those who were most 

 interested in the continued sale and success of Wilson's 

 Ornithology, he declared, advised him not to publish 

 anything, and threw not only cold water but ice upon 

 all his plans. Thus began that unseemly rivalry, fos- 

 tered for many years by George Ord in this country, 

 between the friends of Alexander Wilson and those of 

 John James Audubon, the dead embers of which are oc- 

 casionally stirred even to this day. 1 



Ord, who was about Audubon's own age, was a quiet, 

 persistent, and unassuming worker, held in high esteem 

 by many of his associates. Audubon seems to have done 

 his best to conciliate him then and at a later day, but 

 all to no purpose ; Dr. Harlan once advised him to give 

 up the attempt, since Ord, he declared, had no heart 

 for friendship, having been denied that blessing by 



'See Chapter XIV. 



