294 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
this sketch of himself, for he gave unstinted praise to the 
work in which it was published. As late as 1832, when 
the appearance of T'he Birds of America seems to have 
stimulated him to even more grandiose conceptions of 
his own merits than was usual, he declared that his dis- 
coveries were counted by the thousand, and that he had 
traveled twenty thousand miles, always collecting and 
drawing. In view of the fact that drawing was a talent 
which nature had unequivocally denied him, it is inter- 
esting to read this boast that an unfriendly critic drew 
forth: “My illustrations of 30 years’ travels, with 2,000 
figures will soon begin to be published, and be superior 
to those of my friend Audubon, in extent and variety, 
if not equal in beauty. I shall study and write as long 
as I live, in spite of all such mean attempts against my 
reputation and exertions, trusting in the justice of lib- 
eral men.” ® 
After leaving Audubon at Henderson in the sum- 
mer of 1818, Rafinesque passed down the Ohio into the 
Mississippi, pausing only to pay his respects at the 
famous communistic settlement of New Harmony, by 
the mouth of the Wabash in Indiana, then the abode 
of Thomas Say, David Dale Owen, and Charles Le 
Sueur, all of whom have left bright and honored names 
in the annals of American science. He eventually re- 
turned to Philadelphia by way of Lexington, Kentucky, 
where he was induced to settle and teach natural his- 
tory and the modern languages in the Transylvania 
University, at that time the most important seat of 
learning in the West. After closing up his business 
* Reply to a criticism of G. W. Featherstonhaugh (The Monthly Ameri- 
can Journal of Geological Science), in Rafinesque’s Atlantic Journal and 
Friend of Knowledge, No. 3, p. 113 (Philadelphia, 1832). Rafinesque occa- 
sionally spoke of meeting “my friend Audubon,” who, he declared, had 
invited him to join his expedition to Florida in 1831-32. 
