His persistent heckler, Charles Waterton, was quite busy at this time, four articles having been directed against Audubon or his friends in 1835, though this was not his most prolific year. A similar reference occurs in a letter written to Bachman from Edinburgh on the 20th of July: "As to the rage of Mr. Waterton, or the lucubrations of Mr. Neal, who by the bye is a subscriber to the Birds of America (bona fide), I really care not a fig—all such stuffs will soon evaporate, being mere smoke from a Dung Hill."
In the summer of 1835 Audubon was again established in Edinburgh and working with unremitting vigor at his Biography; some idea of the speed which he maintained when able to devote himself unreservedly to this task can be gathered from the fact that after the issue of his second volume, of 620 large pages, in December, 1834, the third, of 654 pages, was published in just a year from that time. He wrote to Edward Harris from Edinburgh on the 5th of July, when engaged in this work:
I intend to write a few ["Episodes">[ of such extraordinary men, now deceased, with whom I have been acquainted—Thomas Bewick, and Baron Cuvier, for example.
We receive no new subscribers in Europe. The taste is passing for Birds like a flitting shadow—Insects, reptiles and fishes are now the rage, and these fly, swim or crawl on pages innumerable in every Bookseller's window. When this is also passed, naturalists will have to turn over a new leaf and commence afresh, or go to the antipodes in search of materials to please the taste for novelty's sake.—However my work will I hope be finished ere I leave this world, and must be appreciated in years to come, when perhaps my childrens' children will feel proud of their gone ancestor, "The American Woodsman." You see my Dear Friend how far enthusiasm and a portion of the like for standing fame carries even your humble servant a man with no other means than his industry and prudence as a means of support, and one with scarce the motive of education. There are moments, and they are not far between, when thinking of my present enormous undertaking, I wonder how I have been able to support the extraordinary amount of monies paid for the work alone, without taking cognizance of my family and my expeditions, which ever and anon travelling as we are from place to place and country to country are also very great. When I publish my Life and let the world know that Audubon like Wilson, was at Phila. without the half of a Dollar, and that had it not been for benevolent generosity of a certain Gentleman whose name is Edward Harris, Audubon must have walked off from one of the fairest of our Cities like a beggar does in poor Ireland, left destitute of all things save his humble talents, and his determination to produce something worthy of the soul of man: I say my dear Harris will not the world stare! Poor Wilson was only better off than I on account of his superior talents over me at driving the goose quill, but much similarity still seems to have [existed] in both of us, as I could drive the pencil, the brush, the Fiddle bow and even the "Fleuret" [better] than he.
Audubon wrote to Harris again from Edinburgh, on September 5, when he said:
Between you and I the measurements of different Birds given by Wilson are hardly to be depended upon, as I constantly discover a great deficiency in this part of his descriptions which indeed in some cases are otherwise slack, and given as if when fatigued or vexed. Nay I even think at times that he has copied Authors and not nature? as in the instance of the Oyster Catcher, which I fear he made & figured from a European one in the Philadelphia museum, took the descriptions from Latham, and described the Habits of Palliartus which is our own Bird and it seems the only species to be met with in America, at least on our Atlantic coast. Wilson committed the same blunder with the Rallus elegans which he figured and described the habits of the R. capitans for it! I could enumerate more instances of carelessness, but poor Wilson is dead and may God bless his soul!
The third volume of his letterpress,[129] which dealt with the water birds of America, made its appearance at the close of 1835; in the introduction he said:
I look forward to the summer of 1838 with an anxious hope that I may then be able to present you with the last plate of my Illustrations, and the concluding volume of my Biographies. To render these volumes as complete as possible, I intend to undertake a journey to the southern and western limits of the Union, with the view of obtaining a more accurate knowledge of the birds of those remote and scarcely inhabited regions. On this tour I shall be accompanied by my youngest son, while the rest of my family will remain in Britain to direct the progress of my publication.
