Under a Wild Sky, page 28
Audubon was throughout his life generous—careless almost—in sharing his artistic methods. He did so, certainly, to ingratiate himself with powerful patrons. But he apparently also did it believing that his technique was only as good as the painter who tried it. Five months in England and Scotland had finally convinced him that his own talents were unmatched. Every day seemed to bring fresh rewards. On a recent Saturday he’d earned the astonishing sum of £15, about $67, from his exhibit. He told Lucy he would take The Birds of America in search of subscribers throughout Scotland, England, and Wales, then over to the continent of Europe. He said that while he could not yet be positive of success, it now seemed probable.
And he said a lot more. Because he retained the habit of referring to Lucy as “thee” or “thou,” as he had when he first met her as a teenager and knew little English, Audubon’s letters to his wife sometimes had a whiff of formality, a remoteness he probably didn’t intend. Now he told Lucy that more than ever he realized how important it was for a family to be together. Audubon thought the boys would benefit tremendously from a move to Europe. Victor, with his smart head for business, could work with him in keeping track of subscriptions and receipts. John Woodhouse, who seemed to have inherited his father’s talent for drawing, could continue his education. Audubon even suggested that, if he were to die, “Johnny” could take over and complete his work.
But with Lucy, Audubon was strangely noncommittal. He said he wanted her to join him as soon as possible, that he missed her every second of every day. But he did not tell her to come. Instead, he asked her to tell him what she had in mind. Audubon said Lucy should follow her heart in determining her intentions—and then inform him what they were. Back in America, this must have seemed a tepid invitation. All the while that Audubon complained of Lucy not writing, she was feeling at a loss too. In late November she’d written her cousin, saying that “Mr. Audubon” was in England, though she didn’t know where. But she said if things worked out and he went ahead with the publication of his bird drawings over there, she expected to join him the following autumn.
Audubon continued to attend meetings of the Wernerian Society as the new year began. The discussions at these sessions were lately much concerned with the growing evidence that multitudes of animals had once existed and gone extinct. Members often examined fossil bones and devised exciting descriptions of monstrous beasts—pterodactyls, mammoths, and assorted ancient quadrupeds. On January 13, “John James Audubon Esquire of Louisiana” was elected to membership. At the same meeting, Audubon delivered another paper—one that he read himself. It was a lively and entertaining account of the alligator. Audubon spoke at length about his own experience at close quarters with the fearsome reptile, sensing, no doubt, how much this impressed the Wernerians. His insistence that alligators never attack anyone who approaches them head-on was equal parts imagination and bravado. The group found the paper packed with “new information.” Audubon promised that he would next deliver a talk on the animal that had long excited the most interest in the New World—the rattlesnake.
But two weeks later, at the meeting where the rattlesnake talk was scheduled, Audubon asked for an extension. Two more weeks after that, Audubon again showed up without the paper and requested another delay. To make up for it, he brought along two plates from The Birds of America that were fresh from Lizars’s shop. Everyone thought they were wonderful.
Finally, on February 24, Audubon was ready. He brought to the meeting his drawing of the rattlesnake and mockingbirds, and with that as a backdrop, began reading a long, riveting account. He started off by suggesting that a close study of the rattlesnake’s natural habits would disabuse anyone who believed that the snake mesmerized its prey. This so-called power of “fascination” was a widely rumored attribute of the rattlesnake. But Audubon assured his audience that the snake’s hunting abilities had more to do with its speed, its eyesight, its ability to swim, and its powers of “extension,” which, among other things, accounted for the rattlesnake’s breathtaking climbing ability.
Audubon focused on an incident he said he had observed in the woods of Louisiana in 1821. He said he was lying on the forest floor watching a bird when he heard a commotion in the brush nearby. Presently, a gray squirrel sprinted into view, bounding along in leaps of several feet at a time. It was closely pursued by a rattlesnake. The snake, Audubon said, was stretched out to its full length and moving so fast that the squirrel could not gain any ground on it. The squirrel ascended a tree, running up its trunk and then scampering out into the highest branches. The snake followed. In fact, Audubon said, even though the snake climbed much more slowly than the squirrel, it still moved fast enough that the squirrel seemed almost paralyzed on the spot. Eventually, it leapt to another branch. Amazingly, the snake still followed—this time by stretching out almost two-thirds of its total length to span the gap and move over to the next branch. This maneuver was repeated several times, as the squirrel jumped from branch to branch. Finally, trembling with exhaustion and fear, the squirrel leapt to the ground, its feet spread wide to absorb the impact. In a flash, the snake tumbled after it, landing heavily near the squirrel. Before the squirrel could climb another tree, the snake at last overtook it, seizing it by the neck. The snake then wrapped itself around the squirrel and squeezed it to death—whereupon it let go and proceeded to swallow the squirrel tail-first. Audubon added that similar observations were confirmed by “one of our most eminent naturalists.” He neglected to say who.
Audubon continued with general descriptions of rattlesnake behavior and hunting style. He said rattlesnakes were possessed of sharp eyesight, and that he had himself seen them hide after spying a bird of prey high overhead. He also had seen rattlesnakes cruising through the forest, their heads moving from side to side as they looked up into the trees in search of birds’ nests. The snakes, Audubon said, cleverly avoided nests that were guarded by adult birds.
Audubon recounted a “well authenticated” story that illustrated the extreme toxicity of rattlesnake venom. Some years before, in Pennsylvania, a farmer was bitten by a rattlesnake. The fangs broke off in his boot and, having felt only a prick he attributed to a thorn, the farmer was unaware of what had happened. But after returning home he fell sick, and died in a few hours. Months later, the farmer’s son pulled on his late father’s boots—and promptly died as well. A brother of the son now inherited the same boots, put them on, and he died too. Finally a doctor was summoned to investigate the deaths, which mystified everyone. The physician found a fang imbedded in one of the boots and tested it by scratching a dog on the nose with it. The dog died.
Audubon concluded on a lurid note, describing the rattlesnake’s “disgusting” mating ritual. In the spring, Audubon said, large numbers of male and female snakes join together, so that a single, writhing mass is formed of thirty or more individuals. As copulation within this dense assemblage takes place, the snakes turn their mouths outward, open them wide, and hiss furiously while their tails buzz with abandon. Approaching such a ball of mating rattlers is quite dangerous, Audubon said, as the snakes are quick to disengage and give chase to any intruder on the scene.
The substance of Audubon’s talk suggests why it took him so long to compose it. The creative process can be slow. Almost everything in Audubon’s account of the rattlesnake was pure fiction.
Rattlesnakes can climb trees and bushes, and all species of rattlers do on occasion. But their arboreal abilities are limited. Unlike slender-bodied snakes that are good climbers, rattlesnakes are heavy and have relatively stout bodies ill-suited to climbing. Nor are rattlesnakes fast, as snakes go. They typically ambush their prey from a stationary hiding spot. A gray squirrel can easily outrun a rattler on the ground and would have no trouble at all escaping one that attempted to pursue it into a tree. Rattlesnakes do not kill by constriction. Nor do rattlesnakes have remarkable eyesight. In fact, they see well only at close range—say under twenty feet. The idea that rattlesnakes move through the forest scanning trees for nests to attack was fantasy. Rattlesnakes sometimes bunch together near their dens, but they do not mate in massed groups. They copulate in pairs, one male and one female. As for Audubon’s story about the farmer and his sons, it was nothing more than a tall tale that had made the rounds in America for years. The Wernerians were oblivious to all this, but when Audubon’s paper was reprinted later in America, it eventually had to be retracted.
The debate that enveloped this paper—as well as Audubon’s drawing of the rattlesnake and the mockingbirds—simmered for years, though he scarcely ever addressed it. What, exactly, had Audubon seen in the Louisiana forest that caused such a blunder? It was suggested then, and has been ever since, that Audubon must have confused his field notes with others involving not a rattlesnake but a black snake—an accomplished arboreal performer that might well have chased a squirrel up a tree. But this theory seems almost as far-fetched as the story in question.
For one thing, Audubon also reported that, after the snake had eaten the squirrel, he approached it—tapping it with a stick to make it rattle. He then killed the snake and dissected out the squirrel. Audubon had plenty of experience with rattlesnakes, and such a close inspection would have left no doubt as to whether he was looking at one. The chance of a mix-up in his field notes seems equally remote. Audubon kept fairly detailed inventories of birds he observed, and he recorded these and events from the field in his journals. He also maintained that every bird he ever painted had been carefully measured “in all of its parts.” Whether he kept separate, more detailed field notes from this time isn’t known, but it seems doubtful. In the coming years, as work on The Birds of America progressed, Audubon had to acquire hundreds of specimens to complete his descriptions of birds he had in many cases painted years before.
What seems most likely, then, is that Audubon—feeling the pressure of a missed deadline and knowing that a credulous audience would be hanging on his every word—simply invented the whole account. And for the time being, it did nothing to undermine his growing fame.
Audubon had gotten word that Charles-Lucien Bonaparte was in Liverpool. In late December, he’d finally received a letter from Bonaparte—who was by then in London—asking what had become of some bird skins Audubon had supposedly sent him from New Orleans. Audubon, always concerned that he remain on good terms with the prince, wrote to Lucy asking her to look into how the skins had miscarried. Audubon had been worried about this for a while. He’d written to Bonaparte as soon as he’d gotten to England to ask about the skins—and also to urge Bonaparte to keep writing to him as he “traveled the great World.” Audubon wrote again in early December, still worried he’d offended Bonaparte. He reiterated that he had sent Bonaparte a case of bird skins and also gave him the happy news that The Birds of America was in production in Edinburgh.
In the meantime, Audubon’s sphere of admirers around Edinburgh kept expanding. Once again he collected letters of introduction for his next stop, which he now decided should be London. One of these letters came from the great Sir Walter Scott, Scotland’s literary lion. Apparently Scott wasn’t much impressed with Audubon’s drawings, but thought Audubon himself interesting and authentic. Audubon had also been invited to dine and then spend the night at Dalmahoy, the country estate of a Lord and Lady Morton, eight miles distant from Edinburgh. The ride out over the Glasgow Road in the Mortons’ ultra-plush carriage lulled Audubon into a near stupor. When the coach halted in front of Dalmahoy—a gothic, turreted mansion guarded by stone lions—Audubon expected to be met by a man of towering proportions. But Lord Morton was old and shrunken and frail. He spent much of the afternoon seated trembling in a chair on wheels in which he was pushed around the vast rooms of the house. The Mortons had asked that Audubon be sure to bring his portfolio along. Audubon, for his part, had hopes of securing an especially impressive reference from the Mortons. When it turned out that Lord Morton’s poor health wouldn’t allow even that much, Lady Morton obliged Audubon by asking for help from yet another nobleman, Lord Meadowbank, a barrister who was the chief advocate of Scotland. Meadowbank drafted a letter of introduction for Audubon to hand to the secretary for the king of England. Audubon, in a fit of gratitude, took Lady Morton’s suggestion that he get a haircut. Recording this event in his journal—outlined in black—Audubon said that now he knew what it felt like to go to the guillotine.
In Edinburgh, Audubon also met a young landscape artist named Joseph Bartholomew Kidd. Audubon, much impressed by Kidd’s talent, arranged to take lessons in oil painting from him. In early 1827, their friendship expanded into an ambitious partnership. Audubon, who’d begun thinking of a large exhibition of his drawings, offered Kidd one pound (about $4.50) per drawing to copy each of his watercolors in oils. Kidd agreed and commenced the work. As spring approached, Audubon found himself the head of a sprawling enterprise. Kidd was at work and Lizars had completed the first Number. The prospectus was now in circulation. Audubon had earned nearly $800 from his exhibitions and had added to his résumé election to several learned societies. How easy it all seemed now. In March, he had sent Lucy the first Number and the prospectus for The Birds of America. By May he had signed up nineteen subscribers to The Birds of America. Among them were the Mortons and also a woman named Harriet Douglas. Douglas, a rich woman from New York, was visiting Edinburgh when she met Audubon at a party at Professor Jameson’s and decided to subscribe. Half a world away from home, Audubon had at last found an American patron.
14
DEAREST FRIEND
Colymbus glacialis: The Great Northern Diver or Loon
When travelling, or even when only raised from its nest, it moves through the air with all the swiftness of the other species of its tribe, generally passing directly from one point to another, however distant it may be.
—Ornithological Biography
London, one of the great cities of the world, seemed to Audubon almost deserted when he got there early in the summer of 1827. In fact, most of its almost 2 million residents were present. But many of the naturalists and noblemen to whom he had letters of introduction had gone to the country until the fall. Audubon called at one empty house after another over the course of three days. Frustrated, he put the letters in the mail—a decision he later regretted when fewer than half the recipients bothered to respond. After the quaint intimacy of Edinburgh, London’s sprawling tangle of streets was daunting. Audubon stayed briefly at an inn called the Bull and Mouth, then found rooms for rent on Great Russell Street, in a quiet section of the city near the British Museum and the apartment-lined avenues and leafy public squares of Bloomsbury. It was the end of May. He had been gone from home a year.
Audubon had been reluctant to leave Edinburgh, a town that suited him. But he was eager now to sign up new subscribers. These he expected would be found across England and Wales, and eventually in the capitals of Europe. Audubon seemed to give little thought to selling The Birds of America in America. He’d asked Lucy to show her copy of the first Number and the prospectus to the libraries in New Orleans. But the suggestion was a halfhearted one, since he at the same time reminded her that he had no interest in subscribers whose ability to pay seemed suspect.
Audubon had spent April 5, his last day in Edinburgh, packing. It was his wedding anniversary and three years to the day since his fateful arrival in Philadelphia. Everything that America had denied him now seemed to be his for the asking. Audubon the naturalist had been embraced by Scotland’s scientific community, and England’s would soon follow. Audubon the artist was even more successful. People packed exhibitions of his work. Others were quick to snap up the sketches and oils he was now producing on the side. Departing Edinburgh, Audubon had traveled to London by way of Newcastle, York, Leeds, Manchester, and Liverpool—adding subscribers at every stop as people paraded through his rooms to meet the artist and see his work. Three subscribers had even signed up during his stopover at Prideaux John Selby’s estate, Twizel House in Northumberland.
Everyone was dazzled by the first Number. It opened with Audubon’s regal portrait of the turkey cock strutting through a canebrake. The second plate showed a pair of yellow-billed cuckoos cavorting in a pawpaw tree. This was followed by plates of the prothonotary warbler, the purple finch, and the Canada warbler. Each plate typified the Audubon style, from the imposing heft of the turkey to the delicate twistings and turnings of the small birds posed in their shrubs against a gleaming sea of white. Audubon told subscribers that these five prints—spectacular on their own—were a mere beginning. Lizars had commenced the second Number already, and Audubon anticipated that it would be done by the end of June. After that the Numbers would continue, one by one, until all the birds of the New World were represented. When Charles-Lucien Bonaparte stopped in to see him in London, it felt like they had come full circle. Bonaparte was enthusiastic about the engravings. He even offered to provide proper taxonomic descriptions for some of the birds. But he never did.
Altogether, Audubon had landed forty-nine additional subscribers before reaching London—which, added to the Edinburgh list, brought the total to almost one hundred. This was important, Audubon explained to Lucy in a letter detailing his business strategy. The first one hundred copies of a Number earned back the cost of engraving his drawings. After those were sold, the cost of additional copies was relatively small—mainly paper and coloring. Audubon, like every author getting a first taste of success, fantasized about the income he might expect in the future. If he could secure two hundred subscribers, Audubon told Lucy, his clear profit would be nearly $4,000 a year—more than enough to support them both in England “in a style of Elegance and Comfort.” This was based on the supposition that Lizars could produce five Numbers—that is, twenty-five plates—every year. Audubon realized what that meant. It would likely take more than sixteen years to complete The Birds of America. Audubon, who had been only thirty-five when he’d gone off to Louisiana to complete his study of American birds after the collapse of his business in Henderson, now contemplated the sobering prospect that he would be approaching sixty when he finished. And this time—doubtless the best years of his life—would not be spent tramping the woods and shooting game beneath the wild skies of the country he loved. Instead, he now looked forward to a life of writing and drawing and selling subscriptions to his work. Still, if his health held up and the number of subscribers were to reach five hundred, he would earn almost $11,000 a year—an all but inconceivable fortune. Who knew what would happen? The copper plates wore down as the prints were struck, but Lizars assured Audubon that each would be good for 1,500 copies if needed. Perhaps all of this was on Audubon’s mind when he told Lucy she should give his gun to John Woodhouse.
