In a letter written to Ord, on March 4, 1834, Waterton said:
You will see that the Charleston parson [Bachman], Doctors, Surgeons and Professors are up in arms against me and are determined to cut off the Vulture's nose. But do not be alarmed for me, I promise you that I will answer them to your heart's content and tomorrow I shall send up a paper to Loudon for his May number which will make your Philosophers appear very small and put Audubon's claim to literature and ornithology in so clear a light that no one will be in doubt hereafter.... Audubon's gulled friends and supporters in London are in the highest spirits and feel sure that I cannot answer the Charleston letter. By the first of May next their crowing will cease.
When anatomists came to consider the question and found that well developed olfactory lobes and nerves were present in these birds, they favored the theory of smell,[72] and Edinger has more recently expressed the opinion that this consideration renders the possession of an olfactory sense in such birds highly probable. His contention is weakened, however, by the fact that granivorous and insectivorous birds also possess true olfactory nerves, and yet are proved by experiment to have little or no effective sense of smell. It is a problem for students of behavior to solve, and so far as the American vultures are concerned, Audubon's and Bachman's experiments, I believe, have never been repeated or extended with sufficient care to settle the question. The little that has been done, however, suggests that while the vulture in its daily and never ending search for food is mainly guided by its keen eyes, the nose, possibly, may be a coöperating factor when the wind and other conditions are favorable.
While critics were driving the pen, Audubon was hard at work in the field, but his friends did not long remain silent. Favorable notices of his work, actual or prospective, had appeared in the scientific and literary press of England, by David Brewster, Robert Jameson, William Swainson, and "Christopher North" of Blackwood's Magazine. The first American notice appeared in the American Journal of Science for 1829, and this was followed by G. W. Featherstonhaugh, the English geologist, in his recently established but short-lived Monthly American Journal of Geology and Natural Science, to which we have already referred.[73] A little later the London Athenæum gave the first of eleven extended articles on Audubon's work; in reviewing his second volume of letterpress, which appeared in 1834, the writer said: "There is amply sufficient remaining in Audubon's pages for fully a dozen more notices, were we disposed to follow the exhausting system. We have admired Audubon's gorgeous drawings, but our interest in them has been increased a thousand fold, in knowing that they are the spoils of a life's campaign."[74] Again a series of able articles was started by a just critic, W. B. O. Peabody, in the North American Review for April, 1832.[75] Featherstonhaugh deserves credit for having given Audubon a fair hearing at a critical time, when baiting the American Woodsman was a popular pastime in certain circles at Philadelphia; in reviewing the Ornithological Biography in 1832, this plain spokesman gave what he called "a true history of a conspiracy, got up to utterly break down and ruin the reputation of one of the most remarkable men America ever produced."[76]
Audubon's silence under fire of hostile criticism tempted someone in the capacity of a reporter to call on him in London to obtain, if possible, a personal statement, but his lips were then sealed and he would only say: "Had I wished to invent marvels, I need not have stirred from my garret in New York or London." However, in writing to Featherstonhaugh from Bulowville, East Florida, December 31, 1831, Audubon made this comment:[77]
If I did not believe the day to be gone by when it was necessary to defend my snake stories, I could send you many curious accounts of the habits of those reptiles; and I should do it, if it were not that I might be thought to enjoy—too much that triumph which the feeble hostility of three or four selfish individuals has forced upon me. I receive so many acts of real friendship and disinterested kindness, that, I thank God, there is no room left in my heart to cherish unkind feelings towards any one. Indeed, I am not now so much surprised at the incredulity of persons who do not leave cities, for I occasionally hear of things which even stagger me, who am so often a denizen of woods and swamps. What do you think of rattlesnakes taking to the water, and swimming across inlets and rivers? I have not seen this, but I believe it; since the most respectable individuals assure me they have frequently been eye-witnesses of this feat. I can conceive of inducements which reptiles may have for traversing sheets of water to gain dry land, especially in a country much intersected by streams, and subject to inundations, which compel them to be often in the water. In such countries, it is not an uncommon occurrence to find snakes afloat and at great distances from the shore. This appears, no doubt, surprising to those who live where there is almost nothing but dry land; still they ought to be good natured, and believe what others have seen. It has now been made notorious, that numerous respectable individuals, whom duty, or the love of adventure, have led into the woods of our country, have often seen snakes—and the rattlesnake too—in trees; the good people, therefore, who pass their lives in stores and counting houses, ought not to contradict these facts, because they do not meet with rattlesnakes, hissing and snapping at them from the paper mulberries, as they go home to their dinners....
Audubon's most persistent heckler was Charles Waterton,[78] who during two of his most prolific years, 1833 and 1834, published no less than fourteen lucubrations against the "foreigner," and "stranger" as the American was called; all were characterized by quizzing interrogatories, shallow criticism and personal vituperation, for the most part unworthy of serious consideration. Long noted for his eccentricities, Waterton had little or no standing among English zoölogists, against many of whom, from time to time, he issued broadsides or breezy polemics, whenever their statements cast a shadow on his Wanderings. Some of these accusing articles were answered by Victor Audubon and other friends of the naturalist, but they never drew his own fire; probably they benefited him in the end, for when it appeared that the charges brought against him were in large measure the work of envious calumniators, a strong current set in his favor on both sides of the Atlantic.
When Audubon's name was first proposed for membership in the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, it was rejected, according to report, through the influence of George Ord and a few of his partisans, while Waterton, who was Mr. Ord's close friend and correspondent, affirmed that Audubon was rejected by the Society on the strength of Alexander Wilson's personal diary,[79] a statement which appears to be utterly incredible.[80]
In 1833, two years after the first volume of Audubon's "Biography of Birds" had made its appearance, Waterton raised another controversy, in this instance with ammunition supplied by his friend, George Ord of Philadelphia. He boldly proclaimed[81] that Audubon was not the author of the work which bore his name, a charge similar to that which had been brought to the door of the French ornithologist, Le Vaillant, whose history resembled Audubon's in many ways. "I request the English reader," said Waterton, "to weigh well in his own mind what I have stated, and I flatter myself that he will agree with me, when I affirm that the correct and elegant style of composition which appears through the whole of the Biography of Birds cannot possibly be that of him whose name it bears." Waterton maintained that, while Audubon's earlier papers were the work of an illiterate person, his Biography betrayed the hand of a finished scholar from beginning to end. In a reply to Victor Audubon, written July 6, 1833,[82] Waterton declared, upon the authority of George Ord, whom he quoted, that William Swainson had been importuned to write Audubon's work for him, but declined when Audubon insisted upon his own name being given to the world as author. This direct accusation called forth an immediate explanation from Swainson, who said:[83]
In reply to that gentleman (G. Ord, Esq.), regarding the assistance it was expected I should have given my friend, Mr. Audubon, in the scientific details of his work, my reply was, that the negotiation had been broken off from an unwillingness that my name should be printed on the title-page. I was not asked to write the work, nor did Mr. Audubon "insist upon his own name being given to the world as the author" of such parts as he wished me to undertake.... I have read Mr. Audubon's original manuscripts, and I have read Mr. Waterton's original manuscripts. I think the English of one is as good as the English of the other—but here the comparison ends."