APPENDIX. 589 



marvel how he could walk out in them all day, and only just get a 

 slight scratch on the leg when pulling them off at night to go to bed? 

 And when the other brother put them on, about two years after, and 

 got his death also by a scratch, did you not wonder from whence the 

 poison came ? 



However, sir, to cut the matter short, and in order that I may not 

 run the risk of annoying you by too many questions, I beg to assure 

 you that the story of this depopulating Munchausen boot, which you 

 have swallowed without straining, was current when I was a boy. 

 With the exceptions of a few interpolations by Audubon, this very 

 same story (which he had the effrontery to tell you all in Edinburgh 

 was well authenticated, " and took place in a central district in the 

 State of Pennsylvania some twelve or fifteen years ago ") was con- 

 sidered a good joke some fifty or sixty years back. The late Professor 

 Barton, of the University of Pennsylvania, investigated it at the period 

 of his publishing his pamphlet on the rattlesnake, and it turned out 



tO be AN ARRANT YANKEE-DOODLE HOAX. 



I have done, sir, for the present, though I have a scourge of fearful 

 asperity ready for other parts of "Mr Audubon's Notes on the 

 Rattlesnake " which he saw swallow a large American squirrel, tail 

 foremost, to say nothing of the passenger-pigeon, &c., &c. Some- 

 time or other, but not now, I may have occasion to comment on 

 other papers which have appeared in your journal with the signature 

 of Audubon attached to them, and may yet consider it necessary to 

 show to the public that you are no better qualified to review a work 

 on birds than you are to lecture on the poisonous fangs of snakes. 

 Cervantes formerly exclaimed, " Para mi solo necio Don Quixote, y 

 you para el. El supo obrar, y yo escriver." * As far as a knowledge 

 of the true habits of rattlesnakes is concerned, this quotation may be 

 aptly applied to Robert Jameson, Esq., Regius Professor of Natural 

 History in the College of Edinburgh, and to Mr John James Audubon, 

 Fellow of the Royal Society of London. 



If the contents of this letter should sting you, pray reflect, sir, that 

 you deserve to smart a little for your wanton imprudence in holding 

 up to public animadversion the conduct of a gentleman who has 



* " Don Quixote was born for me, and I for him. He knew how to manufac- 

 ture and I to write." We are just the boys for each other. 



