224 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
purpose of placing the rival of his friend in an unenvia- 
ble light. 
Wilson’s diary, which apparently was never seen by 
any of Audubon’s friends, is now known to us only 
through such extracts as Ord and Waterton, his bitter 
enemies, have seen fit to make public; the original has 
probably been destroyed, for it cannot be traced later 
than 1840, when it was still in the hands of George Ord."* 
Charles Waterton gave similar extracts from this famous 
journal in one of his philippics against Audubon in 1834, 
when he said that it was the testimony of this record 
that defeated Audubon’s friends in their initial attempt 
to bring him into the Academy of Natural Sciences at 
Philadelphia. Wilson’s narrative of his adventures at 
Louisville in 1810, as given by Ord and Waterton, is 
as follows:7° 
March 17. Take my baggage and grope my way to Louisville— 
put up at the Indian Queen tavern, and gladly sit down to 
rest myself. 
March 18. Rise quite refreshed. Find a number of land-specu- 
lators here.!7 
March 19, Rambling round the town with my gun. Examined 
Mr. *s drawings in crayons—very good. Saw two new 
birds he had, both Motacille. 
March 20. Set out this afternoon with the gun—killed nothing 
new. [People in taverns here devour their meals. Many 
*See Ord’s charge of plagiarism against Audubon (Bibl. No. 145) 
in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. i (1840). 
So far as could be ascertained in the summer of 1915, Wilson’s diary of 
1810 was not in the possession of any library or scientific society in 
Philadelphia, nor was it in the large collection of books which was 
given by Ord to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of that city at the 
time of his death in 1866. 
1°The bracketed lines are from Waterton, who once stated that he 
had examined the original. 
“This sentence is quoted from Burns’ biographical sketch of Wilson 
(Bibl, No. 161), but tenses are changed to correspond with other entries. 
