Under a Wild Sky (39 page)

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

L
ondon, 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.

While he was at Leeds, Audubon received several letters Lucy had sent back in winter. The difficulty of communicating with one another across the ocean was magnified the longer they were apart. Letters were often delayed, or miscarried entirely. Audubon was frustrated that an expensive watch he'd bought and sent to Lucy when he first arrived in England had not gotten to her.
Reports of storms and shipwrecks tortured him with the thought that letters from Lucy might have been lost. Most vexing of all was the impossibility of timely responses from either side of the Atlantic when letters routinely crossed paths during their long transits.

Lucy had written to say that she remained in Bayou Sara, but had left Beech Woods. Mrs. Percy's long-standing animosity toward Audubon had mutated into a disagreement over Lucy's pay. Her new position was at a smaller but friendlier plantation called Beech Grove, where she was again a schoolmistress to a group of local children. Lucy also asked Audubon about her hair. Was it all right, or should she change it?
Audubon wrote
back saying she should wear her hair however she pleased—and that he'd send her a fine English bonnet to keep it in place. But he didn't have an easy answer to something else she said. Lucy told him that if she could collect the tuition still owed her by Mrs. Percy, she would join him in England that very summer.

Audubon employed a variety of salutations when he wrote to Lucy. Sometimes she was “My Beloved Wife” or “My Dearest Lucy” or even “My Beloved Friend.” Often she was “My Dearest Friend.” Judging by the context of his letters, it seems unlikely that he attached any significance to which of these greetings he chose, even though the word
friend
seems wanting between husband and wife.
In March, addressing her as his “beloved friend,” Audubon had suggested that he would write for her to join him once he had reached London and secured sufficient subscribers there. After months of describing his torment at being apart from her, Audubon began to equivocate on when she should join him. The suggestion that Lucy's coming to England in some way depended on his financial success there—something they probably both understood without having explored the details—became the focus of their correspondence.