THORNS ON THE ROSE 89 



this controversy, and in June, 1833, replied ^^ to one of 

 Waterton's fulminations, which he attributed to envy 

 and jealousy, saying that posterity would regard Au- 

 dubon as "the most distinguished ornithologist of the 

 present age." 



Charles Waterton began his travels at eighteen, but 

 early settled down to a life of leisurely independence on 

 his ancestral estate in Yorkshire, where he studied birds 

 to little purpose and wrote extensively on natural-his- 

 tory subjects; he is best known for his Wanderings, ^^ 

 which has passed through numerous editions and is still 

 read. From youth Waterton enjoyed exceptional ad- 

 vantages, and according to one of his biographers, "lived 

 to extreme old age without having wasted an hour or a 

 shilling." He was the twenty-seventh "lord of Walton 

 Hall," the manor house of the family, which stood on 

 an island in a lake; the estate of 260 acres was mainly 

 converted into a preserve for wild birds. His young 

 wife died in 1829, after having given birth to a son, and 

 he lived on his paternal acres in semi-retirement ever 

 after. It was said that Waterton would never don 

 evening clothes or a black coat, but insisted on wearing 

 a blue frock with gold buttons until an anxious police- 

 man in the neighboring village of Wakefield persuaded 

 him to make a change ; he told the Reverend J. G. Wood 

 in 1863 that he had been bled 160 times, mostly by his 

 own hand. When, in his sixty-ninth year, he had the 

 misfortune to fall from a pear tree and break an elbow 

 joint, the first remedy tried was the extraction of thirty 

 ounces of blood; shortly after this a careless servant 

 withdrew a chair as he was seating himself at table, and 



"See Bibliography, No. 114. 



" Wanderings in South America, the North-West of the United States, 

 and the Antilles, in the years 181Z, 1816, 1820, ^ I8Z4. Originally in 4to., 

 London, 1835. ^^ , 



