328 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
through this excellent man’s interest that Audubon met 
the leading artists and scientific men of the city, in- 
cluding Thomas Sully, Robert and Rembrandt Peale, 
Richard Harlan, Charles Le Sueur, and Charles L. 
Bonaparte, the latter then a rising young ornithologist 
of one and twenty. It was Bonaparte who introduced 
Audubon to the Academy of Natural Sciences, where 
his drawings were exhibited and generally admired. 
Among his critics on that occasion was George Ord, 
who from their first interview seems to have looked upon 
the new luminary with jealous eyes. Whether this was 
true or not, there is no doubt that Ord became one of 
his few really bitter and implacable adversaries, and 
not many days elapsed before Audubon came to feel 
that many in Philadelphia would be glad to see him 
return to the backwoods of the Middle West, from 
which, like an apple of Sodom, he seemed suddenly to 
have dropped into their midst. Those who were most 
interested in the continued sale and success of Wilson’s 
Ornithology, he declared, advised him not to publish 
anything, and threw not only cold water but ice upon 
all his plans. Thus began that unseemly rivalry, fos- 
tered for many years by George Ord in this country, 
between the friends of Alexander Wilson and those of 
John James Audubon, the dead embers of which are oc- 
casionally stirred even to this day.’ 
Ord, who was about Audubon’s own age, was a quiet, 
persistent, and unassuming worker, held in high esteem 
by many of his associates. Audubon seems to have done 
his best to conciliate him then and at a later day, but 
all to no purpose; Dr. Harlan once advised him to give 
up the attempt, since Ord, he declared, had no heart 
for friendship, having been denied that blessing by 
*See Chapter XIV. 
