APPENDIX. 553 



top of the hill, where you and I used to shoot hares. I did not 

 blame the crow, but I abused the old duck for allowing the thief to 

 plunder her with impunity. You know crows must live as well as 

 anybody else. 



Our English naturalists will swallow anything if they can believe 

 Audubon when he tells them that the raven is fond of foxes, skunks, 

 and weasels. I defy any man living to prove that the raven feeds 

 on such quarry. Your being wounded by the fang of a rattlesnake 

 is most fortunate for natural history, and I show your account of it 

 to everybody. Though it is evident that the fang of a poisonous 

 snake is innocuous after death, still prudence would forbid one to 

 make the experiment, which chance caused you to make. Though 

 you tell me you can give me no further information concerning 

 Audubon's residence in the United States, still I hope that, from 

 time to time, you will be able to collect a little. Depend upon it, 

 that quack never pretended to be a naturalist, till he came over to 

 this country, and found how easy it was to gull John Bull. He 

 would also see that our Scotch philosophers, and English, too, are 

 all for making money ; and that they measure what is sent to them 

 on science by the rule of profit and loss. If they fancy that a paper 

 which is sent to them will, what they call, take, they insert it imme- 

 diately, be it ever so extravagant. Loudon, however, is an excep- 

 tion. He has the advancement of science really at heart. In your 

 letter of April 17, I think I see symptoms of your giving up your 

 farm. If so, all the better, you will then catch fish again at Walton 

 Hall. 



I now proceed to comment on your most interesting letter of May 

 15, 1835. When I read Erasers Magazine, which contained his 

 critique on my first letter to Jameson, I wondered much that he 

 should have invented such a silly tale as that of my riding on a 

 cayman across the Orinoquo. I thought it too absurd to require 

 any notice from me. I am of your opinion that the Charleston 

 philosophers begin to find out that Audubon has been duping them. 

 I knew that snakes swallow frogs hind parts foremost. The hind- 

 quarters of a frog will go down your throat just as glibly as the 

 head ; but not so with the hairy tail of a quadruped. 



My kindest remembrance to Titian Peale. Tell him that I am 



