110 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



credit for the discovery; but Audubon, who had not 

 hesitated to poke fun at the species-mongering Rafi- 

 nesque, was still inclined to look with disdain upon work 

 of this sort. He not only rejected Swainson's advice 

 but answered it rather tartly in the first volume of his 

 letterpress, which appeared in the following year. A pas- 

 sage which caused the naturalist no little annoyance on 

 another score was as follows : ^^ 



Since I became acquainted with Mr. Alexander Wilson, the 

 celebrated author of the well known and duly appreciated 

 work on American Birds, and subsequently with my excellent 

 friend, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, I have been aware of the 

 keenness with which every student of Natural History presses 

 forward to describe an object of his discovery, or that may 

 have occurred to travellers in distant countries. There seems 

 to be a pride, a glory in doing this, that thrusts aside every 

 other consideration ; and I really believe that the ties of friend- 

 ship itself would not prevent some naturalists from even rob- 

 bing an old acquaintance of the merit of first describing a 

 previously unknown object. Although I have certainly felt 

 very great pleasure, when, on picking up a bird, I discovered 

 it to be new to me, yet I have never known the desire above 

 alluded to. This feeling I stiU cherish; and in spite of the 

 many injunctions which I have received from naturalists far 

 more eminent than I can ever expect to be, I have kept, and still 

 keep, unknown to others, the species, which, not finding por- 

 trayed in any published work, I look upon as new, having only 

 given in my Illustrations a number of them proportionate to 

 the drawings of already known species that have been engraved. 

 Attached to the descriptions of these, you will find the place 

 and date of their discovery. I do not, however, intend to claim 

 any merit for these discoveries, and should have liked as well 

 that the objects of them had been previously known, as this 

 would have saved some unbelievers the trouble of searching for 



"Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2), vol. i, p. xvii. 



