It is a tissue of the grossest falsehoods ever attempted to be palmed upon the credulity of mankind, and it is a pity that any thing like countenance should be given to it, by reproducing it in a respectable Journal. The romances of Audubon rival those of Münchausen, Mandeville, or even Mendez de Pinto, in the total want of truth, however short they may fall of them in the amusement they afford.
This was rather a stiff charge to be made flatly against the reputation of any one without the most careful investigation, even upon the authority of "a scientific friend." Let us see, then, what basis, if any, really existed for such sweeping charges. In the paper which caused the trouble Audubon had described in great detail how he had seen a large rattlesnake pursue, capture, kill by constriction, and devour a gray squirrel. Before quoting his description of this singular encounter, we shall recall a passage which Audubon wrote in his journal at the time when it occurred,[60] when he was at "Oakley," the plantation of James Pirrie at St. Francisville, Bayou Sara, in the summer of 1821: "August 25. Finished drawing a very fine specimen of a rattlesnake, which measured five feet and seven inches, weighed six and a quarter pounds, and had ten rattles. Anxious to give it a position most interesting to a naturalist, I put it in that which the reptile commonly takes when on the point of striking madly with its fangs." After describing a rough dissection which he made of the rattlesnake's dental arsenal and poison apparatus, he added: "The heat of the weather was such that I could devote only sixteen hours to the drawing." The drawing thus referred to was undoubtedly used in the composition of his celebrated plate.
To revert now to a mooted passage in Audubon's published paper:
Rattlesnakes hunt and secure for their prey, with ease, grey squirrels that abound in our woods; therefore they must be possessed of swiftness to obtain them. Having enjoyed the pleasure of beholding such a chase in full view in the year 1821, I shall detail its circumstances. Whilst lying on the ground to watch the habits of a bird that was new to me, previous to shooting it, I heard a smart rustling not far from me, and turning my head that way, saw, at the same moment, a grey squirrel full grown, issuing from a thicket, and bouncing off in a straight direction, in leaps of several feet at a time, and, not more than twenty feet behind, a rattlesnake of ordinary size, pursuing, drawn apparently out to its full length, and sliding over the ground so rapidly that, as they both moved away from me, I was at no loss to observe the snake gain upon the squirrel. The squirrel made for a tree, and ascended to its topmost branches as nimbly as squirrels are known to do. The snake performed the same task considerably more slowly, yet so fast that the squirrel never raised its tail nor barked, but eyed the enemy attentively as he mounted and approached. When within a few yards the squirrel leaped to another branch, and the snake followed by stretching full two-thirds of its body, whilst the remainder held it securely from falling. Passing thus from branch to branch, with a rapidity that astonished me, the squirrel went in and out of several holes, but remained in none, knowing well that, wherever its head could enter, the body of its antagonist would follow; and, at last, much exhausted and terrified, took a desperate leap, and came to the earth with legs and tail spread to the utmost to ease the fall. That instant the snake dropt also, and was within a few yards of the squirrel before it began making off. The chase on land again took place, and ere the squirrel could reach another tree, the snake had seized it by the back near the occiput, and soon rolled itself about it in such a way that, although I heard the cries of the victim, I scarcely saw any portion of its body. So full of its ultimate object was the snake, that it paid no attention to me, and I approached it to see in what manner it would dispose of its prey. A few minutes elapsed, and I saw the reptile loosening gradually and opening its folded coils, until the squirrel was left entirely disengaged, having been killed by suffocation. The snake then raised a few inches of its body from the ground, and passed its head over the dead animal in various ways to assure itself that life had departed; it then took the end of the squirrel's tail, swallowed it gradually, bringing first one and then the other of the hind legs parallel with it, and sucked with difficulty, and for some time, at them and the rump of the animal, until its jaws became so expanded, that, after this, it swallowed the whole remaining parts with apparent ease.
Audubon then described the appearance that the snake presently assumed, which suggested "a rouleau of money, brought from both ends of a purse towards its centre," and its ineffectual attempts to move off; "when having cut a twig," he continued, "I went up to it, and tapped it on the head, which it raised, as well as its tail, and began for the first time to rattle."
Now every careful reader of this remarkable story, provided he is at all conversant with the habits of snakes, will perceive that it could not possibly have been invented, for it is strictly and minutely in accord with facts, except in one important particular; the snake whose behavior Audubon watched and so accurately described was not the rattlesnake, but the blue racer or black snake (Bascanion constrictor); substitute "blue racer," for "rattlesnake," and this record is photographically correct.[61] The black snake does all the things which are here so minutely described—pursuing its prey with astounding agility, constricting about it as a prelude to swallowing it, ascending trees readily, coiling when brought to bay as if about to strike, and even vibrating the tip of its tail on the ground or leaves, as if in emulation of the genuine rattler, a kind of behavior which was looked upon by Darwin as a case of protective mimicry. No one could have known the rattlesnake better than Audubon from his constant encounters with it in the field; he made drawings of it, dissected its poison apparatus, and had kept it for months in confinement in order to study its habits; but by some curious twist of his notes or his memory, or led astray by the record made of the rattling habit, the species became confused in his published account. His error was gross and he paid dearly for it, but it certainly does not prove him to be the king of nature fakirs.
Audubon's critics were probably right in affirming that the rattlesnake never ascends trees for the purpose of destroying birds, but some overshot the mark by denying that the reptile was able to climb at all. Nor could it have been said with greater justice that the brilliant but sluggish coral snake (Elaps fulvius), which Audubon had also placed in a tree,[62] really never aspires to this distinction. When the snake controversy was waxing warm in America, a number of Audubon's friends, including Colonel John J. Abert[63] and Richard C. Taylor,[64] investigated the question and proved that the rattlesnake was a ready climber at certain times of the year and under certain conditions, a fact which is now better known. Mr. Taylor's party in the course of explorations in the Alleghanies killed forty-one large rattlesnakes during the month of August on a single ridge bordering the Lycoming Valley, and in rendering his report, this geologist said: "I have repeatedly endeavored to verify Mr. Audubon's account of the rattlesnake ascending trees, which has been confirmed."
We have already referred to Audubon's meeting with Thomas Cooper at Columbia, South Carolina, in October, 1833. This versatile man, sometime English lawyer, revolutionist in France, friend of Priestley, judge in the Court of Common Pleas of Pennsylvania, professor of chemistry in Dickinson College as well as in the University of Pennsylvania, and at this time president of South Carolina College at Columbia, was able to confirm Audubon's account of the climbing habit of the rattlesnake, and probably wrote this statement at his request:
