the valves with a broad wing, circumscribed by a nerve. Seeds numerous, not striated. Sec. 5. Pterótropis. Silicle somewhat obovate, with a broad recess, or truncate; back of the valves with a wing not circumscribed by a nerve. Seeds not striated. Hutchinsia is divided into Sec. 1. Iberidélla. Style filiform. Leaves entire or toothed. Flowers purplish, resembling those of an Ibèris. Sec. 2. Nasturtìolum. - Leaves pinnate, lobed. Flowers small, white, like those of Dràba and Teesdàlia. Teesdalia and Platyspérmum have no sections, or, rather, each contains only one. According to the plan proposed by Mr. Newman, the above sections must, I presume, be formed into genera, and the genera themselves will become families; therefore the two (Teesdàlia and Platyspérmum), which have only one section, must have new names invented, to mark the difference between the family and the genus. I cannot see what additional advantage would result from this plan, to compensate for loading the memory with additional terms. In speaking of a plant, the generic and specific names alone are used; the sectional one being only employed in description, to avoid repeating the same character in numerous species, or to communicate a general idea of a plant without giving a detailed description. This plan, of named genera and sections, has been partially adopted in entomology. See the genus Colymbètes, in which the generic character depends chiefly on the formation of the mouth, and the sectional upon that of the legs. Charles C. Babington, M.A., F.L.S., &c. Mr. Audubon and his Work, the Biography of Birds. (VI. 550.)- One glance more at testimonies relative to Mr. Audubon's claim to the authorship of the Biography of Birds. "I have read Mr. Audubon's original manuscripts, and I have read Mr. Waterton's original manuscripts; and both before they were published.* I think the English of the one is as good as the English of the other." (W. Swainson, in VI. 550.) "Mr. Audubon is the son of French parents. He was educated in France till the age of seventeen. At that time he could not speak the English language. It cannot, therefore, be the least disparagement to Mr. Audubon, if, when he had a valuable work to publish in English, he should wish to receive Mr. Mawman, who published the Wanderings, was bound down not to make any alterations in the Wanderings. the assistance and correction of a native." (R. B., in VI. 371.) Here I beg to remark, that Audubon told Cuvier that he had resided for twenty years in the woods of America, living in a rude hut, constructed by himself, for the purpose of studying the habits of birds. Now, let us put these twenty years to seventeen, and we get thirty-seven. Then let us take into consideration the time which Mr. Audubon must have spent in his "counting-room" in Louisville, and in buying and selling goods in other places: for be it known that he kept a shop for many years in the United States. This is far from being a discreditable circumstance; I merely introduce it to show that his avocations of a commercial nature might possibly have interfered with those of a literary nature. The contradictory, ungrammatical, ill-constructed paper, signed "Audubon," on the habits of the turkey buzzard, which appeared in Jameson's Journal for 1826 [reviewed in VI. 162-171.]; in which paper, by the way, Mr. Swainson found a "freshness and an originality," which he pronounced to be "delightful to the general reader," [I. 45.] seems to bear me out in my surmise. Enough. "How blind is that man," said Don Quixote, "who cannot see through a sieve!" Charles Waterton. Walton Hall, Nov. 7. 1833. Mr. Audubon, jun. (VI. 550.) — How extremely forgetful it was in this gentleman, when he attempted (VI. 551.) a defence of his father's account of the rattlesnake, never once to have alluded, in the slightest manner, to the momentous descent of the large American squirrel, tail foremost, down the rattlesnake's throat! To have touched upon the minor parts of that very startling narrative, and not to have bestowed a solitary word on the tail-foremost feature of it, is as defective in Mr. Audubon, jun., as it would be in a surgeon who should try to dissect the fibrous roots only of a cancer, and leave the cancer itself to eat into the vitals of his unfortunate patient. Nobody doubts that rattlesnakes swallow squirrels; but every body must condemn Audubon's account of a rattlesnake chasing a squirrel, and then swallowing it tail foremost. Tail foremost! Why, as long as this foul stain on the page of Audubon's zoology remains unblotted out, of what use is it in his son to tell me that his fath 66 Floridas, the Keys, and the Tortugas I of the rattlesnake will always appear ag plored the story han tom of bad omen, and it will warn me how I put confidence in other narratives which may come from Mr. Audubon's zoological pen. Indeed, if even his friends should be rash enough to call me to account for incredulity on future topics, my short and simple answer will be, that Mr. Audubon's story of a rattlesnake swallowing a large American squirrel, tail foremost, still sticks in my throat, and that positively I cannot try to gulp any thing else till they manage to ease me of that foreign body. In the very face of this reptile stinging his father's reputation, Mr. Audubon, jun., has the temerity to hint at fables in the Wanderings. Will he have the goodness to point them out? Should he succeed in proving a fable in one single instance, be it ever so trivial, I will renounce all claim to veracity, and never more write another word to meet the public eye. Mr. Audubon, jun., remarks, that what little information I have given of the American birds is positively useless until I publish an Indian vocabulary. In the same breath he adds, that Azara has given us both the Indian and scientific names of the birds. To crown all, he pronounces Azara "the very first authority on these matters;" after telling us that Azara affects to despise system. Again, he appears shocked at my want of science, just, by the by, after he has most unhappily quoted his father's own words, to prove to us that his father himself stood in absolute need of a scientific assistant; while his friend Swainson fully confirms this arrant ignorance in the great American ornithologist, by telling the world that he was expected to have given assistance to Audubon in the scientific details of his work. Systematic arrangement, in moderation, is useful and desirable; still it would not suit the Wanderings, a work which professes to be nothing but a sketch. Were I to sit down expressly to describe the habits of those birds of which I have a knowledge, I should begin by saying, Preserve me from bewildering Mr. Loudon's readers in the mazes of modern divisions and subdivisions of birds, and hard names, and mathematical sections of bill and toe; till, at last, we hardly dare pronounce a crow not to be a magpie! These arcana of foot and front are, and ought to be, the exclusive property of those "eminent and scientific naturalists of the metropolis," who inspect bird-skins in closets. Young Mr. Audubon has applied, in his hour of need, to these grave doctors in nomenclature for their opinion on me. Eheu! I am condemned. Well, it is some consolation, at least, to have one's deathwarrant pronounced by the first judges of the land in foro ornithologico. Lausus, son of Mezentius, was my prototype in the olden time, as far as regards the dignity of my demise. "Be comforted, poor Lausy," said the Trojan," for behold, 't is the hand of the great Æneas that fells thee to the ground!" "Hoc tamen, infelix, miseram solabere mortem ; Virg. I will now proceed to give Mr. Audubon, jun., proof sufficient that I can detect a fable from genuine ornithology, without having recourse to the pages of Azara, in order to learn my lesson. Ere I commence, however, I must just hint to Mr. Audubon, jun., that he has not succeeded in convincing me of his father's "fair fame." I myself, with mine own eyes, have seen Wilson's original diary, written by him at Louisville; and I have just now on the table before me the account of the Academy of Sciences indignantly rejecting Mr. Audubon as a member, on that diary having been produced to their view. Charles Waterton. 66 Aerial Encounter of the Eagle and the Vulture. (Sec Audubon's Biography of Birds, p. 163.) Next to the adventure of the rattlesnake and squirrel, I am of opinion that this presents the toughest morsel ever offered to the proverbially wide gullet of Mr. Bull. Audubon says:— Many vultures were engaged in devouring the body and entrails of a dead horse, when a white-headed eagle accidentally passing by, the vultures all took to wing, one, amongst the rest, with a portion of the entrails, partly swallowed, and the remaining part, about a yard in length, dangling in the air. The eagle instantly marked him, and gave chase. The poor vulture tried, in vain, to disgorge, when the eagle, coming up, seized the loose end of the gut, and dragged the bird along for twenty or thirty yards, much against its will, till both fell to the ground; when the eagle struck the vulture, and in a few moments killed it, after which he swallowed the delicious morsel." In his strange paper on the habits of the turkey buzzard, Mr. Audubon tells us that if the object discovered is large, lately dead, and covered with a skin too tough to be ate and torn asunder (cart before the horse), and afford free scope to their appetites, they remain about it and in the neighbourhood." Now, reader, observe, that, the dead horse being a large animal, its skin, according to this quotation, must have been too tough to be torn asunder by the vultures, until putrefaction took place. If, then, these vultures really commenced devouring the dead animal while it was yet fresh, Mr. Audubon's theory, just quoted, is worth nothing. If 66 the contrary, the horse in question had become sufficiently putrid to allow the vultures to commence operations, then I will show that the aerial account of the eagle and the vulture is either a mere imaginary effusion of the author's fancy, or a hoax played off upon his ignorance by some designing wag. The entrails of a dead animal are invariably the first part to be affected by putrefaction. Now, we are told, that a piece of gut had been torn from the rest, and swallowed by the vulture; a portion of the said gut, about a yard in length, hanging out of his mouth. The vulture, pressed hard by the eagle, tried in vain to disgorge the gut. This is at variance with a former statement, in which Mr. Audubon assures us that an eagle will force a vulture to disgorge its food in a moment: so that the validity of this former statement must be thrown overboard, in order to insure the safety of the present adventure; or, vice versa, the present adventure must inevitably sink, if the former statement is to be preserved. Be this as it may, the eagle, out of all manner of patience at the clumsiness of the vulture, in his attempt to restore to daylight that part of the gut which was lying at the bottom of his stomach, laid hold of the end which was still hanging out of the unfortunate rascal's mouth, and actually dragged him along through the air, for a space of twenty or thirty yards, much against the vulture's will. Now, though the eagle pulled, and the vulture resisted, still the yard of gut, which we must suppose was in a putrid state, for reasons already mentioned, remained fixed and firm in the vulture's bill. With such a force, applied to each extremity, the gut ought either to have given way in the middle, or to have been cut in two at those places where the sharp bills of the birds held it fast. But stop, reader, I pray you: speculation might be allowed here, provided this uncommon encounter had taken place on terra firma ; but, in order that our astonishment may be wound up to the highest pitch, we are positively informed that the contention took place, not on the ground, or in a tree, but in the circumambient air! Pray, how was it possible for the eagle to progress through the air, and to have dragged along a resisting vulture, by means of a piece of gut acting as a rope, about a yard in length? Birds cannot fly backwards; and the very act of the eagle turning round to progress after it had seized the end of the gut, would have shortened the connecting medium so much, that the long wings of both birds must have immediately come in contact; their progress would have been prevented by the collision; and, in lieu of the eagle dragging the resisting vulture through the air, for a space of twenty or thirty |