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Authors: Jesse Browner
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record what he had seen, in drawing
and in accurate, scientifically grounded notes. Audubon was a keen outdoorsman, a superb shot, and a robust camper, able to
endure enormous hardship for the sake of capturing one new finch on paper. He was, of course, a brilliant artist and a tireless
observer. Rafinesque - although gifted with occasionally brilliant insight and credited by some with having discovered "the
basic law of change in species some twenty years or more before Charles Darwin" - was a terrible draftsman and an unreliable
note-taker who went into the field in the summer but waited until winter to draft his observations. He was an impatient researcher
and a foolishly rash publisher who "once sent for publication a paper describing, in regular natural history style, twelve
new species of thunder and lightning which he had observed near the Falls of the Ohio." As David Starr Jordan, first president
of Stanford University, noted, "Rafinesque's work as a whole is bad enough, and bad in a peculiarly original and exasperating
way." Another refers to "the beauty of the quaint French penmanship and the atrocious badness of the accompanying drawings."
Although he crossed the Alleghenies five times on foot, once registering twelve hundred miles in a single year, he was out
of place in nature, where he was tormented by weather, hunger, and biting insects and where, by his own admission, he carried
an umbrella.
Of all the differences between the two men, perhaps the most telling was Audubon's ferocious single-mindedness. From his earliest
days, he had had one ambition and one ambition only: to draw and be recognized as the world's foremost artist of nature. From
early adulthood, his entire life and substance were devoted to that purpose. He left his beloved sons and wife for years on
end to raise money and support for his project and, when in the field, often spent eighteen hours a day shooting, drawing,
and taking notes. Rafinesque was, to put it mildly, eclectic. Although he always considered himself to be a naturalist, he
also boasted without irony of having been a botanist, geologist, geographer, historian, poet, philosopher, philologist, economist,
philanthropist, traveler, merchant, manufacturer, brewer, collector, improver, teacher, surveyor, draughtsman, architect,
engineer, palmist, author, editor, bookseller, librarian, and secretary. "I hardly know what I may not become as yet, since,
whenever I apply myself to anything which I like, I never fail to succeed," he wrote with considerable exaggeration.
Up to the moment of their encounter, Rafinesque had endured the same sort of ill fortune that would continue to pursue him
throughout his remaining days. Born in Galata, near Constantinople, in 1783, he was raised in Marseilles and Genoa. He lost
his father to yellow fever when he was ten and his father's fortune to a dishonest partner. His mother, a timorous German,
kept him locked away from the rest of the world, educated him with private tutors, and generally left him "largely unprepared
to defend himself in an aggressive, selfish world." It did not help that his sole passion was botany, a solitary vocation.
With Napoleon's recruiters closing in, she shipped him off to Philadelphia in 1802, where he toiled as a shipping clerk while
scouring the countryside for specimens.
He returned to Italy in 1804, moving to Sicily where he lived for the next ten years. He worked as secretary to the United
States consul and as the manager of a whiskey distillery before making a small fortune exporting medicinal squill, a wild
herb which he allowed the Sicilians to believe was being used in the manufacture of dye. He married and had two children,
a daughter and a son who died in infancy. When the Sicilians came to understand how profitable his business was and cut off
their dealings with him, and when his wife took up with a squalid comedian named Giovanni Pizzarrone, he
and in accurate, scientifically grounded notes. Audubon was a keen outdoorsman, a superb shot, and a robust camper, able to
endure enormous hardship for the sake of capturing one new finch on paper. He was, of course, a brilliant artist and a tireless
observer. Rafinesque - although gifted with occasionally brilliant insight and credited by some with having discovered "the
basic law of change in species some twenty years or more before Charles Darwin" - was a terrible draftsman and an unreliable
note-taker who went into the field in the summer but waited until winter to draft his observations. He was an impatient researcher
and a foolishly rash publisher who "once sent for publication a paper describing, in regular natural history style, twelve
new species of thunder and lightning which he had observed near the Falls of the Ohio." As David Starr Jordan, first president
of Stanford University, noted, "Rafinesque's work as a whole is bad enough, and bad in a peculiarly original and exasperating
way." Another refers to "the beauty of the quaint French penmanship and the atrocious badness of the accompanying drawings."
Although he crossed the Alleghenies five times on foot, once registering twelve hundred miles in a single year, he was out
of place in nature, where he was tormented by weather, hunger, and biting insects and where, by his own admission, he carried
an umbrella.
Of all the differences between the two men, perhaps the most telling was Audubon's ferocious single-mindedness. From his earliest
days, he had had one ambition and one ambition only: to draw and be recognized as the world's foremost artist of nature. From
early adulthood, his entire life and substance were devoted to that purpose. He left his beloved sons and wife for years on
end to raise money and support for his project and, when in the field, often spent eighteen hours a day shooting, drawing,
and taking notes. Rafinesque was, to put it mildly, eclectic. Although he always considered himself to be a naturalist, he
also boasted without irony of having been a botanist, geologist, geographer, historian, poet, philosopher, philologist, economist,
philanthropist, traveler, merchant, manufacturer, brewer, collector, improver, teacher, surveyor, draughtsman, architect,
engineer, palmist, author, editor, bookseller, librarian, and secretary. "I hardly know what I may not become as yet, since,
whenever I apply myself to anything which I like, I never fail to succeed," he wrote with considerable exaggeration.
Up to the moment of their encounter, Rafinesque had endured the same sort of ill fortune that would continue to pursue him
throughout his remaining days. Born in Galata, near Constantinople, in 1783, he was raised in Marseilles and Genoa. He lost
his father to yellow fever when he was ten and his father's fortune to a dishonest partner. His mother, a timorous German,
kept him locked away from the rest of the world, educated him with private tutors, and generally left him "largely unprepared
to defend himself in an aggressive, selfish world." It did not help that his sole passion was botany, a solitary vocation.
With Napoleon's recruiters closing in, she shipped him off to Philadelphia in 1802, where he toiled as a shipping clerk while
scouring the countryside for specimens.
He returned to Italy in 1804, moving to Sicily where he lived for the next ten years. He worked as secretary to the United
States consul and as the manager of a whiskey distillery before making a small fortune exporting medicinal squill, a wild
herb which he allowed the Sicilians to believe was being used in the manufacture of dye. He married and had two children,
a daughter and a son who died in infancy. When the Sicilians came to understand how profitable his business was and cut off
their dealings with him, and when his wife took up with a squalid comedian named Giovanni Pizzarrone, he
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