Under a Wild Sky (38 page)

The university, which was on South Bridge Street, was an imposing structure.
It faced the street, looking like a great, gray city unto itself. The entrance was a soaring walkway that passed beneath a cupola and opened onto an immense stone courtyard surrounded by tall, colonnaded buildings with high, arched windows and vertiginous balconies. As Audubon walked into the courtyard clutching his paper, plus a portfolio
and drawing kit, the sound of his boots echoing over the stones mixed in his ears with the pounding of his heart.

The Wernerians met in a long room with a fireplace at one end. They sat in heavy, high-backed chairs on either side of two large tables.
When Audubon walked in, a stuffed swordfish—an object of the day's discussions—lay on one of the tables. Audubon may have felt a little like the fish. Everyone was eager to meet and listen to the American woodsman. Audubon, who had at the last minute demurred on presenting the paper himself, listened as the society's secretary read it aloud to the members in his stead.
It was substantial, occupying thirteen typeset pages when Jameson later published it in the
Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal.
Audubon gave a thorough account of the turkey buzzard's life history and behavior. But he focused on the bird's sense of smell, which Audubon believed made little or no contribution to its finding carrion on which to feed. Audubon wrote that he had learned when he was very young that turkey buzzards were attracted to carrion by the odor of its putrefaction. But when he began studying the birds in the wild, he became less sure. They seemed quite unable to detect his presence, even when very nearby, unless they saw him. Audubon stated that nature is parsimonious—that creatures may, for example, rely on keen eyesight or a sensitive ability to smell, but not both. To test which sense the turkey buzzard relied on, he had conducted a number of experiments.

In one, Audubon stuffed a well-cured deer hide with grass and placed it in a field so as to make it look like a dead animal. A turkey buzzard alighted on it almost at once, and made numerous attempts to tear into the “corpse.” In a second test, Audubon hid a dead and rotting hog in a ravine, covering it with brush so as to make it invisible from the air. Although the hog soon stank to high heaven under the hot Louisiana sun, buzzard after buzzard soared right over it for days without one bothering to investigate. Audubon then took a young pig down into the same ravine and slashed its throat, allowing the blood-soaked ground to remain in plain sight while he hid the pig's body close by. Buzzards immediately spotted the blood and, convening on the spot, followed the blood trail to the pig and ate it.

Audubon's compelling report was well wide of the truth. He may or may not have done such experiments, but he was quite wrong about the turkey buzzard.
While it is the case that most bird species have a very
poorly developed sense of smell—bird brains tend to have extremely small olfactory receptors—the turkey buzzard is a notable exception. It possesses an acute sense of smell that is especially attuned to a compound released by rotting meat.

But of course none of the Wernerians were in a position to question Audubon.
The minutes from the meeting instead praised him for “exploding the opinion generally entertained of the [turkey buzzard's] extraordinary powers of smelling.” Audubon, gratified by the reception, relaxed a little. He opened his portfolio and showed the members his drawing of the turkey buzzard. They all thought it breathtaking. Audubon then got out his drawing equipment and demonstrated his methods, explaining how he wired birds to a gridded board and then copied them exactly onto paper on which he had lightly drawn matching squares.
At the conclusion of the session, Professor Jameson—seconded by Sir William Jardine—nominated Audubon as a Foreign Member of the Wernerians.

Just before Christmas of 1826, Audubon wrote to Lucy. He was in high spirits, despite what had become a grinding routine of dinners and parties that often broke up in the wee hours of the morning, leaving him run-down and headachy. At one point, he went two weeks without dining once in his own rooms. His days, filled with drawing and writing, were exhausting. Still, he seemed to be realizing all his ambitions in one headlong rush. And, after another long silence from Lucy, during which he'd again feared the worst, two letters from her had finally arrived. The news that she and the boys were well made him happy and homesick. Even so, he said, his situation in Edinburgh bordered on the “miraculous.” He expected Lizars would complete the first Number of
The Birds of America
by the middle of January—a mere six months after he had landed at Liverpool. Audubon thought the engravings were splendid. This was critical, he told Lucy. Even though his original drawings inspired the most effusive praise, if the reproductions were inferior, no one would want them. In the meantime, while Lizars was occupied with the engraving, Audubon's reception in Edinburgh had become a string of fantastic successes. He told Lucy he would soon be elected to the Wernerian Society. In fact, two of its most esteemed members—the great naturalists
Selby and Jardine—had recently called on him two days running to receive instruction in his drawing technique.

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.