1 00:00:01,600 --> 00:00:06,479 Speaker 1: With his international fame as the most American of artists. Naturalists, 2 00:00:06,600 --> 00:00:10,479 Speaker 1: John James Audubon amazed the world with his life size 3 00:00:10,520 --> 00:00:14,720 Speaker 1: paintings of nearly five hundred American birds, but by the 4 00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:18,040 Speaker 1: time of his Western journey for a book on American mammals, 5 00:00:18,320 --> 00:00:22,239 Speaker 1: he had grown depressed at the widespread destruction of nature 6 00:00:22,480 --> 00:00:26,880 Speaker 1: in America. I'm Dan Flores, and this is the American West, 7 00:00:28,320 --> 00:00:31,360 Speaker 1: brought to you by Velvet Buck Wine. Where the hunt 8 00:00:31,400 --> 00:00:34,720 Speaker 1: meets the harvest. A portion of each battle goes to 9 00:00:34,800 --> 00:00:40,519 Speaker 1: support backcountry hunters and anglers. Limited supply available at Velvetbuck 10 00:00:40,640 --> 00:01:00,880 Speaker 1: Vineyards dot com. Enjoy responsibly John James Audobon and Banishing America. 11 00:01:12,160 --> 00:01:15,800 Speaker 1: In the eighteen fifties, late in his life, the famed 12 00:01:15,840 --> 00:01:19,720 Speaker 1: American writer Henry David Thureaux looked back on the colonial 13 00:01:19,800 --> 00:01:25,440 Speaker 1: past and early American history and felt personally injured. By then, 14 00:01:25,520 --> 00:01:28,640 Speaker 1: the number of animals and birds that had disappeared or 15 00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:32,200 Speaker 1: drastically declined in the East was shocking to anyone who 16 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:37,520 Speaker 1: paid attention. The Atlantic world's original penguins, the Great Auks, 17 00:01:37,959 --> 00:01:43,000 Speaker 1: were entirely gone, driven to extinction. Whooping cranes and sandhill 18 00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:47,319 Speaker 1: cranes were rarely, if ever seen. The local inhabitants had 19 00:01:47,319 --> 00:01:52,120 Speaker 1: pushed deer to scarcity and exterminated both wolves and wild turkeys. 20 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:58,600 Speaker 1: Heath hens, passenger pigeons, trumpeter, swans, even pilliated woodpeckers and 21 00:01:58,800 --> 00:02:03,480 Speaker 1: ravens had become I'm rare reading accounts like William Woods 22 00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:07,120 Speaker 1: of the New England. They both shared, but two centuries 23 00:02:07,160 --> 00:02:10,959 Speaker 1: apart in time. Threw sat down to his journal one 24 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:15,200 Speaker 1: morning in March of eighteen fifty seven, and his thought 25 00:02:15,360 --> 00:02:19,520 Speaker 1: follow of thought, took up his pen and scribbled a stark, 26 00:02:19,960 --> 00:02:26,720 Speaker 1: powerful line, I am that citizen whom I pity. I 27 00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:30,480 Speaker 1: can imagine Thoreau, at first reflective as he sat at 28 00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:34,320 Speaker 1: his desk in the morning twilight, becoming more irate by 29 00:02:34,360 --> 00:02:38,880 Speaker 1: the minute when I consider that the nobler animals have 30 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,800 Speaker 1: been exterminated. Here he finally sat down in his ledger. 31 00:02:43,560 --> 00:02:51,000 Speaker 1: The cougar, panther, lynx, wolverine, wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, 32 00:02:51,360 --> 00:02:54,639 Speaker 1: the turkey. I cannot but feel as if I lived 33 00:02:54,720 --> 00:03:00,640 Speaker 1: in attained, and as it were, emasculated country. As he 34 00:03:00,680 --> 00:03:05,280 Speaker 1: went on, I imagine his mind growing ever darker. I take 35 00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:08,639 Speaker 1: infinite pains to know all the phenomena of the spring, 36 00:03:08,760 --> 00:03:12,520 Speaker 1: for instance, thinking that I have here the entire poem, 37 00:03:12,919 --> 00:03:15,600 Speaker 1: and then, to my chagrin, I hear that it's but 38 00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:18,960 Speaker 1: an imperfect copy that I possess, and have read that 39 00:03:19,080 --> 00:03:22,639 Speaker 1: my ancestors have torn out many of the first leaves 40 00:03:22,680 --> 00:03:29,639 Speaker 1: and grandest passages, and mutilated it in many places. This experience, 41 00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:35,240 Speaker 1: he realized, was like attending a symphony, then understanding that 42 00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:39,600 Speaker 1: many of the finest instruments were missing their contributions to 43 00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:44,440 Speaker 1: the score silence, or as he pushed the idea, like 44 00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:48,200 Speaker 1: looking into the night sky only to discover that familiar 45 00:03:48,280 --> 00:03:54,800 Speaker 1: constellations had vanished. No one else had put American history 46 00:03:54,800 --> 00:03:58,120 Speaker 1: in quite this way, and no one since has said 47 00:03:58,120 --> 00:04:02,840 Speaker 1: it so movingly. I should not like to think some 48 00:04:03,120 --> 00:04:07,560 Speaker 1: demigod had come before me and picked out some of 49 00:04:07,600 --> 00:04:11,880 Speaker 1: the best of the stars thereau raged, I wished to 50 00:04:11,960 --> 00:04:25,680 Speaker 1: know an entire heaven and an entire earth. One person 51 00:04:25,680 --> 00:04:30,400 Speaker 1: who knew America's and the West's entire heaven and entire 52 00:04:30,440 --> 00:04:34,760 Speaker 1: earth better than anyone, and gave anguished witness to its 53 00:04:34,800 --> 00:04:41,480 Speaker 1: passing was the naturalist painter writer John James Ottobon. Like Threau, 54 00:04:42,120 --> 00:04:46,479 Speaker 1: Autubon benefited from a strategic placement in the American story. 55 00:04:47,680 --> 00:04:51,640 Speaker 1: Native peoples had spent twenty three thousand years studying and 56 00:04:51,760 --> 00:04:56,560 Speaker 1: learning America's animals us stupendous body of oral knowledge, but 57 00:04:56,640 --> 00:05:00,680 Speaker 1: one also badly damaged in the colonial disease epidemics that 58 00:05:00,760 --> 00:05:05,760 Speaker 1: took away so many Native historians. Europeans and Africans, on 59 00:05:05,800 --> 00:05:10,040 Speaker 1: the other hand, came from worlds away. Almost everything about 60 00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:13,880 Speaker 1: America was brand new to them. The continent turned out 61 00:05:13,960 --> 00:05:18,600 Speaker 1: not to yield up griffins or sirens, mermaids or unicorns, 62 00:05:18,960 --> 00:05:24,359 Speaker 1: those chimerical beings out of medieval fantasies, although occasional rumors 63 00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:28,360 Speaker 1: of such did pop up in the journals of European observers. 64 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:32,839 Speaker 1: In sixteen fourteen, a British ship's captain said he saw 65 00:05:33,160 --> 00:05:37,120 Speaker 1: a siren of great beauty in New England waters, and 66 00:05:37,200 --> 00:05:41,040 Speaker 1: in seventeen twenty, the French explorer Bernard de la Harp 67 00:05:41,400 --> 00:05:46,640 Speaker 1: claimed a unicorn sighting in today's Oklahoma. But America's real 68 00:05:46,680 --> 00:05:50,799 Speaker 1: flesh and bud creatures, unexpected and puzzling as they were, 69 00:05:51,160 --> 00:05:54,440 Speaker 1: turned out to possess and enduring fascination all their own 70 00:05:55,960 --> 00:06:00,680 Speaker 1: for old worlders. America's strangeness had begun with a new 71 00:06:00,800 --> 00:06:06,480 Speaker 1: category of birds barely larger than bumblebees, whose hovering, diving, 72 00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:11,560 Speaker 1: and buzzing earned them the name humbirds. There was a 73 00:06:11,760 --> 00:06:16,360 Speaker 1: large and beautiful parrot, and an astonishing bird that mimicked 74 00:06:16,360 --> 00:06:20,479 Speaker 1: to perfection every other bird song it heard. There was 75 00:06:20,520 --> 00:06:23,480 Speaker 1: a mammal that carried its young in a stomach pouch, 76 00:06:24,040 --> 00:06:28,080 Speaker 1: and a squirrel that flew like a bat. Endless rivers 77 00:06:28,120 --> 00:06:32,560 Speaker 1: of wild pigeons flowed at fantastical speeds over the towering 78 00:06:32,680 --> 00:06:37,480 Speaker 1: forests of America. Some colonists told stories of wild cattle 79 00:06:37,600 --> 00:06:41,960 Speaker 1: with humpbacks and lion manes and tails carried like a 80 00:06:42,040 --> 00:06:47,240 Speaker 1: scorpion stinger. Skeptics in Europe dismissed many of these stories, 81 00:06:47,560 --> 00:06:52,080 Speaker 1: but those creatures all were real. So were America's poisonous snakes. 82 00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:57,039 Speaker 1: From the first landings. Europeans were chilled to find that 83 00:06:57,160 --> 00:07:02,039 Speaker 1: America possessed deadly snakes, and lluting one that telegraphed intention 84 00:07:02,240 --> 00:07:07,360 Speaker 1: to strike with an angry, rattling warning. As one account 85 00:07:07,480 --> 00:07:11,880 Speaker 1: put it, there are a thousand different kinds of birds 86 00:07:11,920 --> 00:07:15,080 Speaker 1: and beasts of the forest which have never been known, 87 00:07:15,480 --> 00:07:20,560 Speaker 1: neither in shape nor name, neither among the Latins, nor Greeks, 88 00:07:20,600 --> 00:07:22,600 Speaker 1: nor any other nations. 89 00:07:22,160 --> 00:07:22,760 Speaker 2: Of the world. 90 00:07:24,240 --> 00:07:28,200 Speaker 1: This human interest in birds and animals is inherent and 91 00:07:28,360 --> 00:07:33,520 Speaker 1: millions of years old in US. Even today, our evolutionary 92 00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:38,080 Speaker 1: origins among other creatures leads us to expose human toddlers 93 00:07:38,360 --> 00:07:41,600 Speaker 1: to images of birds and animals as a first step 94 00:07:41,640 --> 00:07:45,560 Speaker 1: in learning about a diverse world. That's a bedrock foundation 95 00:07:45,680 --> 00:07:49,800 Speaker 1: of human cultural training. We were made by our past 96 00:07:50,080 --> 00:07:55,120 Speaker 1: to be naturalists, but for colonial Europeans, convinced by their 97 00:07:55,160 --> 00:07:59,560 Speaker 1: religion that as a result of divine design, humans were 98 00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:04,040 Speaker 1: accept l different from all other living things and possessed 99 00:08:04,120 --> 00:08:08,280 Speaker 1: also of an economic system that regarded wildlife as potential 100 00:08:08,360 --> 00:08:13,440 Speaker 1: sources of wealth. A fascination with America's biological diversity was 101 00:08:13,600 --> 00:08:19,760 Speaker 1: never merely curiosity about never before seeing creatures. By John 102 00:08:19,840 --> 00:08:24,119 Speaker 1: James Audubn's time he was alive from seventeen eighty five 103 00:08:24,440 --> 00:08:29,440 Speaker 1: to eighteen fifty one, natural history had acquired a purpose. 104 00:08:30,640 --> 00:08:35,640 Speaker 1: Europe's colonial age. Royal societies had given natural history the 105 00:08:35,679 --> 00:08:39,280 Speaker 1: task of determining whether the new species emerging from the 106 00:08:39,320 --> 00:08:45,200 Speaker 1: Americas and elsewhere held advantages for the colonial enterprise. One 107 00:08:45,200 --> 00:08:48,800 Speaker 1: of the Age of Reasons breakthroughs was the so called 108 00:08:49,240 --> 00:08:54,319 Speaker 1: scientific method, which rested on a critical assessment of evidence 109 00:08:54,840 --> 00:09:00,280 Speaker 1: and conclusions that other disinterested researchers could test for validity. 110 00:09:00,640 --> 00:09:05,319 Speaker 1: Western science's supposed purpose was to enable humanity to re 111 00:09:05,559 --> 00:09:09,560 Speaker 1: establish the control over nature it had lost when God 112 00:09:09,640 --> 00:09:13,200 Speaker 1: had expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. 113 00:09:14,360 --> 00:09:20,120 Speaker 1: By Ottobon's time, though, Sir Isaac Newton's Principia, which revealed 114 00:09:20,120 --> 00:09:23,120 Speaker 1: the universal force of gravity and the laws of motion, 115 00:09:23,559 --> 00:09:28,800 Speaker 1: had transformed humanity's grasp of nature. Although Ottobon himself was 116 00:09:28,840 --> 00:09:32,680 Speaker 1: not inclined to push at the philosophical edges of science, 117 00:09:33,240 --> 00:09:38,360 Speaker 1: during his lifetime, natural history was hoping for a similar 118 00:09:38,800 --> 00:09:44,320 Speaker 1: grand theory to Newton's. Unfortunately, he did not quite live 119 00:09:44,440 --> 00:09:49,479 Speaker 1: long enough to learn about Charles Darwin's ground shattering insights 120 00:09:49,520 --> 00:09:53,559 Speaker 1: into the diversity of life and humanity's true place in it. 121 00:09:55,040 --> 00:10:01,120 Speaker 1: So pre Darwinian natural history occupied a separate hisay historical moment. 122 00:10:02,200 --> 00:10:07,760 Speaker 1: Naturalists like Mark Catesby, John Lawson, Antoine Lapage du Pratz, 123 00:10:08,240 --> 00:10:13,400 Speaker 1: William Bartram, Alexander Wilson, and John James Ottobon were doing 124 00:10:13,480 --> 00:10:17,480 Speaker 1: their best to learn America by seeking out and engaging 125 00:10:17,520 --> 00:10:22,280 Speaker 1: with the continent's remarkable and unique wildlife, aided by the 126 00:10:22,400 --> 00:10:26,440 Speaker 1: natural history geniuses of the age. In the seventeen hundreds, 127 00:10:26,679 --> 00:10:32,320 Speaker 1: caroless Linnaeus had established a universal system of species classification, 128 00:10:32,920 --> 00:10:37,559 Speaker 1: and Alexander von Humboldt had laid out early ideas about ecology. 129 00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:43,520 Speaker 1: Autobu and his fellows investigated and portrayed America's diverse life, 130 00:10:43,840 --> 00:10:47,520 Speaker 1: never dreaming. The animals and birds they studied often had 131 00:10:47,640 --> 00:10:52,800 Speaker 1: histories that stretched back millions of years. What Audobon and 132 00:10:52,840 --> 00:10:56,440 Speaker 1: other early nationalists also chronicle, though, was the beginning of 133 00:10:56,480 --> 00:11:00,760 Speaker 1: American nature's decline, a decline we now know would ultimately 134 00:11:00,760 --> 00:11:06,360 Speaker 1: produced the loss of two million years of specially evolved genetics. 135 00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:10,680 Speaker 1: This happened in the space of a mere four hundred 136 00:11:10,760 --> 00:11:18,600 Speaker 1: years and was well underway in Audubon's time. Of all 137 00:11:18,600 --> 00:11:23,760 Speaker 1: America's early naturalists, Audubon best answered the Old World's fantasy 138 00:11:23,800 --> 00:11:29,160 Speaker 1: imagination of what a European become American nature man should be. 139 00:11:30,640 --> 00:11:34,960 Speaker 1: With wavy's shoulder, linked chestnut hair, gray eyes, and the 140 00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:39,480 Speaker 1: easy grace of an athlete. Automon remained lean and cut 141 00:11:39,480 --> 00:11:44,400 Speaker 1: a striking figure all his life, speaking English with an accent. 142 00:11:44,960 --> 00:11:48,360 Speaker 1: A visitor once asked him you are a Frenchman, sire. 143 00:11:48,800 --> 00:11:52,280 Speaker 1: You look like a Frenchman, and you speak like one. 144 00:11:52,480 --> 00:11:57,440 Speaker 1: Audoman was the very definition of romantic charisma, a rough 145 00:11:57,520 --> 00:12:02,400 Speaker 1: hewn New world Byron of White Indian. As his own 146 00:12:02,480 --> 00:12:05,520 Speaker 1: brother in law said of him, Audubon was not just 147 00:12:05,559 --> 00:12:09,479 Speaker 1: a painter of nature subjects or noteworthy for the elegance 148 00:12:09,520 --> 00:12:12,960 Speaker 1: of his figure. He was also an expert with guns, 149 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:17,400 Speaker 1: an excellent swimmer, and a fine fencer and dancer who 150 00:12:17,440 --> 00:12:21,400 Speaker 1: had away with dogs and horses, and with women like 151 00:12:21,480 --> 00:12:24,960 Speaker 1: the New Orleans beauty who asked to pose nude for him. 152 00:12:25,360 --> 00:12:29,640 Speaker 1: Are women of high station all over Europe. Like Byron, 153 00:12:30,040 --> 00:12:35,160 Speaker 1: Audobon actually shared many traits with the Native American deity Coyote. 154 00:12:35,960 --> 00:12:41,600 Speaker 1: He was hugely talented and charismatic, but like Coyote, Audubon 155 00:12:41,760 --> 00:12:47,520 Speaker 1: was also vain, jealous, and rarely generous. Destined to be 156 00:12:47,600 --> 00:12:52,360 Speaker 1: one of early America's celebrity exports, Audubon was actually the 157 00:12:52,400 --> 00:12:57,480 Speaker 1: out of wedlock son of a wealthy Frenchman, Captain Jean Ottobon. 158 00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:02,600 Speaker 1: Audobon spent his entire life hiding the actual facts of 159 00:13:02,640 --> 00:13:06,120 Speaker 1: his birth, but he came into the world in the Caribbean. 160 00:13:06,600 --> 00:13:11,920 Speaker 1: His mother the captain's young mistress, Jean Reban, who died 161 00:13:12,040 --> 00:13:16,959 Speaker 1: soon after giving birth. Audubon always denied his mother, claiming 162 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:20,120 Speaker 1: he was the offspring of a Spanish woman of good breeding, 163 00:13:20,640 --> 00:13:24,280 Speaker 1: not the result of his father's fleeing with a peasant chambermaid. 164 00:13:25,320 --> 00:13:30,040 Speaker 1: Raised in nat Along with another of Captain Otdobon's illegitimate children, 165 00:13:30,600 --> 00:13:35,480 Speaker 1: Audobon dodged Napoleon's draft at age eighteen and fled to 166 00:13:35,559 --> 00:13:39,280 Speaker 1: America in eighteen o three. By the time he arrived 167 00:13:39,280 --> 00:13:43,600 Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, he had anglicized his name and promptly fell 168 00:13:43,640 --> 00:13:49,400 Speaker 1: in love with a well educated young neighbor named Lucy Bakewell. 169 00:13:49,480 --> 00:13:54,319 Speaker 1: He'd been captivated by drawing and painting since childhood. Picturing 170 00:13:54,480 --> 00:13:58,200 Speaker 1: nature was his first love, but for all his later mastery, 171 00:13:58,400 --> 00:14:02,360 Speaker 1: he was self taught. He claimed to have studied under 172 00:14:02,440 --> 00:14:05,720 Speaker 1: Jacques Luis da Vide in France, but there exists no 173 00:14:05,800 --> 00:14:09,080 Speaker 1: evidence of it. In eighteen oh eight, when he quit 174 00:14:09,120 --> 00:14:11,720 Speaker 1: his father's farm and fled with his new bride Lucy 175 00:14:11,760 --> 00:14:15,800 Speaker 1: to Kentucky and then Louisiana, painting seems to have hovered 176 00:14:15,800 --> 00:14:20,160 Speaker 1: in his mind like a beckoning evening star. The couple 177 00:14:20,240 --> 00:14:24,680 Speaker 1: had two sons, Victor and John Woodhouse by eighteen twelve. 178 00:14:25,360 --> 00:14:31,040 Speaker 1: To support them, Audubon tried farming, briefly utilizing slaves, which 179 00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:34,720 Speaker 1: in our time has sometimes gotten him canceled. Then he 180 00:14:34,800 --> 00:14:39,280 Speaker 1: tried business. He lost everything the family had accumulated in 181 00:14:39,360 --> 00:14:43,320 Speaker 1: the great financial crash of eighteen nineteen, and that disaster 182 00:14:43,480 --> 00:14:47,080 Speaker 1: led him to try, at age thirty four, to become 183 00:14:47,240 --> 00:14:51,760 Speaker 1: a full time painter. It was the literal fulfillment of 184 00:14:51,840 --> 00:14:57,520 Speaker 1: the notion of art as an act of desperation. Audubon's 185 00:14:57,600 --> 00:15:00,920 Speaker 1: art interests had always been painting birds, but therein lay 186 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:05,160 Speaker 1: a problem. By eighteen nineteen, all nine volumes of the 187 00:15:05,200 --> 00:15:09,480 Speaker 1: Bird Book done by his predecessor and rival, Alexander Wilson, 188 00:15:09,720 --> 00:15:13,840 Speaker 1: were out. Wilson had passed away, but his work was 189 00:15:13,920 --> 00:15:18,320 Speaker 1: widely respected. Of their meeting when the Scotsman was in 190 00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:22,240 Speaker 1: Kentucky in eighteen ten, Audubon's version had it that after 191 00:15:22,400 --> 00:15:26,680 Speaker 1: Wilson proudly showed his work, Audubon had laid some of 192 00:15:26,720 --> 00:15:30,920 Speaker 1: his own paintings on the store counter, stunning Wilson into 193 00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:36,760 Speaker 1: dismayed silence. Wilson's account of his Kentucky visit barely mentioned 194 00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:41,320 Speaker 1: Audobon at all, no friendship ever developed between them, a 195 00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:50,840 Speaker 1: pattern in Audubon's life. Audubon intended his opus The Birds 196 00:15:50,840 --> 00:15:54,560 Speaker 1: of America to be a comprehensive book that would portray 197 00:15:54,680 --> 00:15:59,440 Speaker 1: every bird in the United States life sized. That meant 198 00:15:59,440 --> 00:16:03,880 Speaker 1: the natural has had to find, observe, collect, study, and 199 00:16:04,080 --> 00:16:09,640 Speaker 1: paint every species, which brings up an unavoidable topic. All 200 00:16:09,760 --> 00:16:14,360 Speaker 1: these early naturalists were shootests to capture and paint the 201 00:16:14,440 --> 00:16:18,560 Speaker 1: iridescent color shadings of a hummingbird's wing, the bird had 202 00:16:18,600 --> 00:16:21,360 Speaker 1: to be in hand. For the bird to be in hand, 203 00:16:21,720 --> 00:16:25,480 Speaker 1: it had to be dead. Ottomon certainly observed and wrote 204 00:16:25,520 --> 00:16:29,800 Speaker 1: about living birds, but to paint he needed specimens, which 205 00:16:29,840 --> 00:16:34,120 Speaker 1: he wired in lifelike poses and tried to render rapidly 206 00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:38,280 Speaker 1: with either hand and sometimes both, before death glazed their 207 00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:43,240 Speaker 1: eyes and dull the vibrancy of their coloring. Ottomon didn't 208 00:16:43,280 --> 00:16:47,560 Speaker 1: just paint, he wrote, which means that his great published works, 209 00:16:47,840 --> 00:16:51,240 Speaker 1: along with the journals he kept, have left us some 210 00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:56,040 Speaker 1: of the most profound descriptions of a long lost America. 211 00:16:56,200 --> 00:16:59,600 Speaker 1: He inhabited an age though when much of the original 212 00:16:59,640 --> 00:17:04,320 Speaker 1: while life abundance of the colonial period was disappearing. How 213 00:17:04,359 --> 00:17:08,760 Speaker 1: could that be In the mid seventeen hundreds, a ninety 214 00:17:08,840 --> 00:17:13,040 Speaker 1: year old American colonist had lamented to a visiting European 215 00:17:13,520 --> 00:17:17,320 Speaker 1: that during his lifetime he had witnessed an orgy like 216 00:17:17,440 --> 00:17:22,800 Speaker 1: slaughter of Atlantic seaboard wildlife. No one would even accept 217 00:17:22,840 --> 00:17:28,440 Speaker 1: blame for such destruction. When the animals disappeared, everyone pointed 218 00:17:28,440 --> 00:17:31,760 Speaker 1: fingers at someone else. It was the Indian's fault, the 219 00:17:31,800 --> 00:17:35,640 Speaker 1: colonists claimed, or the fault of the French or the Spaniards. 220 00:17:36,680 --> 00:17:40,000 Speaker 1: The European was a ghast. Why have none of your 221 00:17:40,080 --> 00:17:44,639 Speaker 1: governments passed laws against such a thing? The old man's 222 00:17:44,720 --> 00:17:50,520 Speaker 1: answer summed up and enduring American sensibility. The spirit of 223 00:17:50,640 --> 00:17:54,439 Speaker 1: freedom in America, he told the visitor, would never brook 224 00:17:54,800 --> 00:17:59,800 Speaker 1: such an infringement of individual rights. Killing as many animals 225 00:17:59,840 --> 00:18:04,520 Speaker 1: as one wished, was an American franchise essential to freedom. 226 00:18:05,400 --> 00:18:08,320 Speaker 1: Governments could pass all the laws they wanted, but his 227 00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:13,560 Speaker 1: fellow citizens simply would not suffer them to be obeyed, 228 00:18:13,720 --> 00:18:19,040 Speaker 1: he said. So. Automan lived, painted, and wrote in the 229 00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:24,119 Speaker 1: decades when much of Original America was starting to wobble. Seriously, 230 00:18:25,200 --> 00:18:28,719 Speaker 1: none of us alive now, for instance, has ever experienced 231 00:18:28,760 --> 00:18:32,880 Speaker 1: anything like the full body impact of passenger pigeon flights 232 00:18:33,119 --> 00:18:37,400 Speaker 1: that had characterized the continent for fifteen million years. They 233 00:18:37,440 --> 00:18:42,080 Speaker 1: were a multisensory overload and often left people shocked in 234 00:18:42,119 --> 00:18:46,600 Speaker 1: a state of nervous exhaustion. Millions of beating pigeon wings 235 00:18:46,920 --> 00:18:50,120 Speaker 1: created a roar, like a tornado shaking down a forest 236 00:18:50,520 --> 00:18:54,159 Speaker 1: or a hurricane hitting shore. The air they moved was 237 00:18:54,200 --> 00:18:58,760 Speaker 1: a palpable wind against hair and skin. The flocks emitted 238 00:18:58,800 --> 00:19:02,639 Speaker 1: a peculiar scent. Witnesses struggled to assign something like the 239 00:19:02,680 --> 00:19:07,600 Speaker 1: smell of a very large poultry farm, but gameier with 240 00:19:07,800 --> 00:19:12,840 Speaker 1: hearing touch smell all engaged to their limits. The visual 241 00:19:12,880 --> 00:19:19,320 Speaker 1: impression then added the beautiful and the scarcely believed the flights. 242 00:19:19,640 --> 00:19:25,520 Speaker 1: One of the continent's iconic natural spectacles resembled the windings 243 00:19:25,560 --> 00:19:29,480 Speaker 1: of a vast and majestic river. Auburn said of these 244 00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:33,120 Speaker 1: feathered rivers that when a hawk or falcon swooped into one, 245 00:19:33,600 --> 00:19:36,440 Speaker 1: the whole body of birds proceeded to create a kind 246 00:19:36,440 --> 00:19:40,879 Speaker 1: of grand curvilinear swerve through the sky. Then, like a 247 00:19:40,920 --> 00:19:45,560 Speaker 1: snow melt stream routing around a boulder, all the succeeding 248 00:19:45,640 --> 00:19:50,800 Speaker 1: flocks would reenact the same movement all day long. Auburn 249 00:19:50,880 --> 00:19:54,119 Speaker 1: wrote that he saw one of these bird rivers that 250 00:19:54,400 --> 00:20:00,399 Speaker 1: ran for three days. Then there was America's giant wooden pecker. 251 00:20:01,280 --> 00:20:04,280 Speaker 1: From its dagger like bill to the stiff, forked tail 252 00:20:04,359 --> 00:20:08,080 Speaker 1: that propped it upright on tree trunks, the ivory bill 253 00:20:08,160 --> 00:20:12,720 Speaker 1: woodpecker was nearly a two foot tall woodpecker. In flight, 254 00:20:12,960 --> 00:20:17,480 Speaker 1: its wingspan extended two and a half feet. The ivory 255 00:20:17,480 --> 00:20:21,719 Speaker 1: bill was the second largest woodpecker in the world, exceeded 256 00:20:21,760 --> 00:20:26,040 Speaker 1: only by its genetic kin, the Imperial woodpecker of Mexico. 257 00:20:27,240 --> 00:20:32,040 Speaker 1: Native people had long admired its disposition and courage. Attired 258 00:20:32,119 --> 00:20:35,720 Speaker 1: as if in a tuxedo, the ivory bill's black body 259 00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:38,800 Speaker 1: was artfully set off by a pair of white stripes 260 00:20:39,280 --> 00:20:42,639 Speaker 1: extending from its yellow eyes to a large patch of 261 00:20:42,680 --> 00:20:47,119 Speaker 1: white feathers on its back. Matching white strips on both 262 00:20:47,160 --> 00:20:50,159 Speaker 1: sides of the trailing wing edges made it easy to 263 00:20:50,240 --> 00:20:55,200 Speaker 1: identify in flight. Both sexes had top not crests, but 264 00:20:55,240 --> 00:20:58,800 Speaker 1: the males was a livid scarlet, giving the bird an 265 00:20:58,840 --> 00:21:03,639 Speaker 1: air of formal, self aware magnificence. Beneath the crest was 266 00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:08,160 Speaker 1: a skull like a compressible sponge built to absorb shocks. 267 00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:13,399 Speaker 1: When not in use, the eight inch tongue recessed into storage. 268 00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:16,680 Speaker 1: Around the back and top of its head. There were 269 00:21:16,800 --> 00:21:20,880 Speaker 1: three eyelids, one of which was transparent and remained over 270 00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:24,679 Speaker 1: the eye to protect it from flying debris. Its flight 271 00:21:24,840 --> 00:21:29,240 Speaker 1: was direct and fast, with slight up and down undulations, 272 00:21:29,640 --> 00:21:34,480 Speaker 1: wing beats, then glide, wing beats, then glide. All who 273 00:21:34,480 --> 00:21:38,040 Speaker 1: wrote about seeing one mentioned the elegance of an ivory 274 00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:43,080 Speaker 1: bill's passage through the forest and its strange primal toy 275 00:21:43,119 --> 00:21:48,240 Speaker 1: trumpet cries. Automan famously said that every time he saw 276 00:21:48,240 --> 00:21:51,600 Speaker 1: an ivory bill fly through the old growth Southern forest, 277 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:56,040 Speaker 1: its passage reminded him of an Anthony van Dyke painting 278 00:21:57,119 --> 00:22:01,720 Speaker 1: the Great Auke. Notwithstanding he could not imagined that America 279 00:22:01,760 --> 00:22:07,040 Speaker 1: would ever lose such a creature. And one more act 280 00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:11,760 Speaker 1: of witnessing, when he was still an aspiring naturalist painter, 281 00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:16,080 Speaker 1: Autobon left those of us down the timeline, a chilling 282 00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:21,520 Speaker 1: account of how one other symbolic wild American animal experienced 283 00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:25,760 Speaker 1: the war we were leveling at wildlife. That animal was 284 00:22:25,800 --> 00:22:29,640 Speaker 1: the wolf, and the year was eighteen fourteen, by which 285 00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:36,320 Speaker 1: time American attitudes towards wolves had become almost vicious. Spending 286 00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:39,440 Speaker 1: the night with a farmer on the Vincennes Trace, Audobon 287 00:22:39,520 --> 00:22:43,640 Speaker 1: accompanied his host to a capture pit that held three wolves. 288 00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:48,479 Speaker 1: The wolf sin they had attacked the farmer's loose stock 289 00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:53,040 Speaker 1: in a country by then bled of nearly all its deer, bison, 290 00:22:53,160 --> 00:22:58,000 Speaker 1: and elk from his colonial forebears. This farmer had learned 291 00:22:58,160 --> 00:23:02,880 Speaker 1: exactly how to respond. Climbing into the pit, he one 292 00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:07,960 Speaker 1: by one severed the wolve's hamstrings with a knife, exhibiting 293 00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:11,120 Speaker 1: as little fear as if he had been marking lambs, 294 00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:15,640 Speaker 1: Audubon wrote. Then the farmer dragged the wolves out so 295 00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:20,040 Speaker 1: his dogs could tear them to pieces. Audubon helped him 296 00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:23,760 Speaker 1: pull up the largest, a black male wolf in the 297 00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:28,679 Speaker 1: prime of life. Audubon described this beast of old world 298 00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:34,320 Speaker 1: horror stories as motionless with fright, as if dead, its 299 00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:39,000 Speaker 1: disabled legs swinging to and fro, its jaws wide open, 300 00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:43,440 Speaker 1: and the gurgle in its throat alone indicating that. 301 00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:44,080 Speaker 2: It was alive. 302 00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:50,679 Speaker 1: Petrified with fear, the black wolf offered no resistance. It 303 00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:54,000 Speaker 1: took the dogs less than a minute to stop the 304 00:23:54,040 --> 00:23:59,760 Speaker 1: gurgling and extinguish his life, even as he witnessed such things, 305 00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:04,359 Speaker 1: including what he called the dreadful havoc of the passenger 306 00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:09,520 Speaker 1: pigeons slaughter. Audubon initially reacted like most Americans of his time. 307 00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:13,960 Speaker 1: The great author of Nature, as he put it, would 308 00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:20,040 Speaker 1: never allow something like extinction. Then, in the eighteen thirties, 309 00:24:20,320 --> 00:24:24,479 Speaker 1: he came face to face with reality. Seeking out a 310 00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:29,159 Speaker 1: pair of great Owks, the Northern Hemispher's penguins to paint 311 00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:34,240 Speaker 1: for his Bird book, Audubon discovered that egg hunters already 312 00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:38,919 Speaker 1: wiped out the last known American colony. He had to 313 00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:43,199 Speaker 1: copy his ox from a prior painting by another naturalist. 314 00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:48,119 Speaker 1: The experience forced him to reassess his faith in divinity 315 00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:57,240 Speaker 1: and in human nature. To preserve for posterity the natural 316 00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:00,919 Speaker 1: world he experienced, Audubon first had to and duct fuel 317 00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:05,080 Speaker 1: work like that I've just described. After he'd labored over 318 00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:08,560 Speaker 1: the paintings, he had to find an engraver and a 319 00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:13,840 Speaker 1: team of printmakers, then enroll subscribers while he was writing 320 00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:17,600 Speaker 1: the text that would become the final book. When no 321 00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:20,760 Speaker 1: publisher in either Philadelphia or New York would take on 322 00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:25,680 Speaker 1: his bird project, in eighteen twenty six, Audubon hauled four 323 00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:29,960 Speaker 1: hundred of his bird drawings to England. Here at last, 324 00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:35,639 Speaker 1: the handsome American was an immediate sensation. A long haired 325 00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:40,800 Speaker 1: Akian someone wrote with Locke spilling down his back. Once 326 00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:45,200 Speaker 1: the subscribers tore their eyes from Audubon his gorgeous paintings 327 00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:50,080 Speaker 1: with the birds and dramatic animated poses, and everyone set 328 00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:56,240 Speaker 1: in what the English called a landscape. Holy American trees, flowers, grass, 329 00:25:56,560 --> 00:26:00,000 Speaker 1: even the tints of the sky and the waters worked 330 00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:04,000 Speaker 1: their magic. He found his publisher in London, and he 331 00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:08,720 Speaker 1: even merited advanced praise by the French, the Parisians, never 332 00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:15,680 Speaker 1: expecting such genius from an American. Somehow Audubon completed all 333 00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:18,960 Speaker 1: these tasks on both sides of the Atlantic in just 334 00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:23,320 Speaker 1: twelve years. When it finally appeared in eighteen thirty nine, 335 00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:27,720 Speaker 1: The Birds of America didn't just present beautiful birds shown 336 00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:33,240 Speaker 1: in their habitats. Audubon had painted them life size. A showstopper, 337 00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:37,920 Speaker 1: the book was stunning, at thirty by forty inches, the 338 00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:42,040 Speaker 1: size of a small house window. Even so, the biggest 339 00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:46,480 Speaker 1: birds like whooping cranes, wild turkeys, and great blue herons 340 00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:50,560 Speaker 1: had to strike usual poses to fit the page without 341 00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:55,919 Speaker 1: cropping legs or wings. The final version contained four hundred 342 00:26:55,960 --> 00:26:59,680 Speaker 1: and thirty five plates, and with the eighty five Western 343 00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:03,360 Speaker 1: birds birds whose skins he had acquired from other naturalists, 344 00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:10,280 Speaker 1: enumerated four hundred eighty nine species of American birds. The world, 345 00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:16,080 Speaker 1: especially the European world, where Audubon traveled, dined, partied, and 346 00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:22,280 Speaker 1: soul subscriptions, was utterly entranced. No less than famous Parisian 347 00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:28,160 Speaker 1: naturalists Georges Cuvier called The Birds of America the greatest 348 00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:36,280 Speaker 1: monument ever erected by art to nature. It's fitting, then, 349 00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:40,080 Speaker 1: that a final poignant story in Audubon's life as a 350 00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:44,879 Speaker 1: nature witness took place in the West. In the summer 351 00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:48,399 Speaker 1: of eighteen forty three, Audubon finally made it to the 352 00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:52,360 Speaker 1: sunset side of the continent. While The Birds of America 353 00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:56,760 Speaker 1: was gathering admirers and praise, he had launched an ambitious 354 00:27:56,880 --> 00:28:02,119 Speaker 1: new project. Assisted by his son Victor and John Woodhouse 355 00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:07,000 Speaker 1: and their able father in law, John Bachmann, Audobon's team 356 00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:09,760 Speaker 1: had published the first volume of a new work the 357 00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:14,280 Speaker 1: previous year. It had a less catchy title than the 358 00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:20,240 Speaker 1: bird book. Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America was notably awkward, 359 00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:25,280 Speaker 1: but the country beyond the Mississippi had now lured one 360 00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:29,320 Speaker 1: of the world's premier nature artists aboard the steam vessel 361 00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:34,840 Speaker 1: Omega to witness the fable bestiary of Western America, on 362 00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:39,600 Speaker 1: what Audubon called the grand and last journey I intend 363 00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:43,520 Speaker 1: to make as a naturalist. This was a world apart 364 00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:47,840 Speaker 1: from anything Audubon had experienced before. The man had spent 365 00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:51,360 Speaker 1: almost his entire life in nature. He'd witnessed what he 366 00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:55,920 Speaker 1: had estimated were billions of passenger pigeons in flight, waterfowl, 367 00:28:56,040 --> 00:29:01,160 Speaker 1: and unimaginable numbers migrating down the Mississippi Flyway, captive wolves 368 00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:05,480 Speaker 1: terrified by the human hand. Yet his journal makes clear 369 00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:08,880 Speaker 1: that he was in no way prepared for what unfolded 370 00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:11,719 Speaker 1: in front of them as the Omega chugged up the 371 00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:17,520 Speaker 1: narrowing Missouri River, their destination Fort Union, at the confluence 372 00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:24,200 Speaker 1: of the Yellowstone and Missouri. The west stunning. In the east, 373 00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:27,800 Speaker 1: the woods were alive with bird song, but mammals were 374 00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:31,480 Speaker 1: often secretive and hard to see. But in this wide 375 00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:35,560 Speaker 1: open country, animals were in sight almost constantly, and their 376 00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:40,480 Speaker 1: diversity and strangeness were breathtaking. Two weeks before they arrived 377 00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:43,520 Speaker 1: at Fort Union, not far from the eastern border of 378 00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:47,960 Speaker 1: today's Montana. Automn set down these scenes in his journal. 379 00:29:48,800 --> 00:29:52,440 Speaker 1: I've excised some of his other observations here so we 380 00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:55,400 Speaker 1: can get to the pure experience of what he was 381 00:29:55,480 --> 00:30:03,080 Speaker 1: seeing and feeling. We've passed some beautiful scenery, and almost 382 00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:07,000 Speaker 1: opposite had the pleasure of seeing five mountain rams or 383 00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:10,360 Speaker 1: big horns. On the summit of a hill. We saw 384 00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:13,560 Speaker 1: what we supposed to be three grizzly bears, but could 385 00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:17,160 Speaker 1: not be sure. We saw a wolf attempting to climb 386 00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:21,080 Speaker 1: a very steep bank of clay. On the opposite shore. 387 00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:24,640 Speaker 1: Another wolf was lying down on a sandbar like a dog. 388 00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:28,960 Speaker 1: I forgot to say that last evening we saw a 389 00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:32,920 Speaker 1: large herd of buffaloes, with many calves among them. They 390 00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:36,440 Speaker 1: were grazing quietly on a fine bit of prairie. They 391 00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:40,479 Speaker 1: stared and then started at a handsome canner, producing a 392 00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:45,320 Speaker 1: beautiful picturesque view. We've seen many elks swimming the river. 393 00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:50,320 Speaker 1: These animals are abundant beyond belief hereabouts. And if ever 394 00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:54,200 Speaker 1: there was a country where wolves are surpassingly abundant, it's 395 00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:58,560 Speaker 1: the one we are now in. In fact, Autumn wrote, 396 00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:03,360 Speaker 1: it is impossible to describe or even conceive the vast 397 00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:07,960 Speaker 1: multitudes of these animals that exist even now and feed 398 00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:12,320 Speaker 1: on these ocean like prairies, face to face with a 399 00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:17,000 Speaker 1: spectacle equalled only by the Serengeti or the massaih Mara, 400 00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:23,080 Speaker 1: marvelous aggregations of big grazers and their predators, all visible 401 00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:27,080 Speaker 1: in the bright light and vast spaces he was reeling. 402 00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:28,960 Speaker 2: He closed a. 403 00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:33,640 Speaker 1: Letter to his wife that summer this way my head 404 00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:38,960 Speaker 1: is actually swimming with excitement, and I cannot write anymore. 405 00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:51,120 Speaker 1: Automon portrayed himself in eighteen forty three as hale and hearty, 406 00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:54,480 Speaker 1: although by the time he went west his hair had 407 00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:57,960 Speaker 1: gone white and many of his teeth were missing. But 408 00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:01,800 Speaker 1: the eight month journey wore on him him he declined 409 00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:05,440 Speaker 1: a buffalo hunt, because, as he said he was two 410 00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:10,640 Speaker 1: near seventy, he had actually just turned fifty eight. He 411 00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:14,440 Speaker 1: took on painting animals much as he had birds, by 412 00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:20,080 Speaker 1: shooting them and wiring them into active poses, their eyes fixed. 413 00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:20,360 Speaker 3: On the viewer. 414 00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:23,560 Speaker 1: But of the one hundred and fifty plates in the 415 00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:28,280 Speaker 1: Quadruped's three volumes, he would paint only half of them. 416 00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:34,440 Speaker 1: His son, John Woodhouse, less talented did the rest. Perhaps 417 00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:39,720 Speaker 1: Ottoman's age made him value life, all life more, But 418 00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:43,600 Speaker 1: the artists had now begun to refer to himself as 419 00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:48,280 Speaker 1: a two legged monster with a gun. And now in 420 00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:54,880 Speaker 1: the West, he soured on seeing animals die. Thousands multiplied 421 00:32:54,960 --> 00:33:00,880 Speaker 1: by thousands of buffaloes are murdered in senseless play. What 422 00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:05,080 Speaker 1: a terrible destruction of life, as if it were for 423 00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:10,840 Speaker 1: nothing or next to it. Ottovin's personal experiences in the 424 00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:16,080 Speaker 1: West were rich, but the scientific returns were meager. Meriwether, 425 00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:20,800 Speaker 1: Lewis Catlin, and Bodmer had already been in this country. 426 00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:23,960 Speaker 1: Of the twenty seven mammals the party collected on the 427 00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:29,000 Speaker 1: Missouri only the blackfooted ferret, a primary predator in prairie 428 00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:33,560 Speaker 1: dog ecology, turned out to be a new discovery. They 429 00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:37,840 Speaker 1: did at least add fourteen new birds to science. To 430 00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:41,960 Speaker 1: approach the thoroughness of birds of America, John Woodhouse had 431 00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:45,520 Speaker 1: to make a separate trip to Texas, where he collected 432 00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:50,120 Speaker 1: an ocelot, a red Texan wolf, and heard stories of 433 00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:54,920 Speaker 1: muscular jaguars, which seemed to range over most of the Southwest. 434 00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:59,000 Speaker 1: What naturalists already knew of the animal life of the 435 00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:04,360 Speaker 1: Southwestern Deaders and the West Coast the Audubons painted from specimens. 436 00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:08,440 Speaker 1: The book was a heroic effort, but not nearly the 437 00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:13,440 Speaker 1: cultural triumph of Birds, partly because Audubon could not complete it, 438 00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:18,600 Speaker 1: partly because, as one reviewer put the difference, birds were 439 00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:25,200 Speaker 1: exalting and spiritual, while mammals somehow seemed earthy and base. 440 00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:31,000 Speaker 1: Because Audubon set it down in his journal, his lingering 441 00:34:31,080 --> 00:34:35,640 Speaker 1: memory of how he experienced the trip remains. Here is 442 00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:40,000 Speaker 1: his last impression of the West. As they headed down river, 443 00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:48,640 Speaker 1: wolves howling, and bulls roaring. Just like the long continued 444 00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:55,040 Speaker 1: role of a hundred drums thousands upon thousands of buffaloes, 445 00:34:55,640 --> 00:35:01,440 Speaker 1: the roaring can be heard for miles. Four years after 446 00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:07,200 Speaker 1: Audobon wrote that, his collaborator John Bachmann visited him at 447 00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:10,960 Speaker 1: his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and 448 00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:17,080 Speaker 1: found Audubon's noble mind is all in ruins. As Bachmann said, 449 00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:23,160 Speaker 1: the great naturalist was only sixty two. John James Ottoman 450 00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:28,000 Speaker 1: passed away three years later. In the same decade, Thureau 451 00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:32,200 Speaker 1: would write his Entire Heaven and Entire Earth passage, and 452 00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:37,440 Speaker 1: Charles Darwin would publish his blockbuster on the origin of species. 453 00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:42,840 Speaker 1: All three of them changed natural history and our sense 454 00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:45,320 Speaker 1: of ourselves for the rest of time. 455 00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:04,480 Speaker 4: I got two humming bird questions. I'm gonna give them 456 00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:07,200 Speaker 4: to you both and you can take them. No hummingbirds 457 00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:11,680 Speaker 4: in Europe. And two somewhere you wrote something, maybe it 458 00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:19,239 Speaker 4: was in Wild New World about someone uh selling or 459 00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:23,040 Speaker 4: buying four thousand hummingbird skins. 460 00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:27,760 Speaker 3: Yeah, which everyone want to do first. 461 00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:33,840 Speaker 1: Yeah, so they're no hummingbirds are a North and South American. 462 00:36:35,960 --> 00:36:39,239 Speaker 3: A surprising little would be man. 463 00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:44,800 Speaker 1: Yes, well, I mean that's and that's how the Europeans reacted. 464 00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:46,800 Speaker 3: It was like, what in the hell. 465 00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:48,759 Speaker 4: Is that I had never I'd never do that, man, 466 00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:50,759 Speaker 4: I picture, I would have guess. They were everywhere, some 467 00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:51,800 Speaker 4: version of them everywhere. 468 00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:55,640 Speaker 1: Yeah, now they they were purely an American feature, and 469 00:36:55,680 --> 00:36:58,640 Speaker 1: they were one of the things that Europeans immediately, i 470 00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:04,520 Speaker 1: mean at once, began to describe and marvel over. And 471 00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:09,200 Speaker 1: yes you are remembering correctly. That happened in the eighteen 472 00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:14,280 Speaker 1: eighties at a time when the the use of bird 473 00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:19,040 Speaker 1: feathers for fashion was a big deal, both in America 474 00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:22,760 Speaker 1: and in Europe. And the actual figure is in one 475 00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:29,719 Speaker 1: week in the London commercial rooms four hundred thousand, four 476 00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:36,200 Speaker 1: hundred thousand hummingbird skins from America, from North America, from 477 00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:37,160 Speaker 1: the United States. 478 00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:39,839 Speaker 4: I feel like if you get some, I could get 479 00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:42,960 Speaker 4: you maybe like three or four over the summer if 480 00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:48,320 Speaker 4: I was really diligent about hanging out by my helping bird. 481 00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:52,680 Speaker 3: How are they, like, what are they doing? They were 482 00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:54,360 Speaker 3: using netting them or something. 483 00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:56,480 Speaker 1: I think they were netting them. I think that's exactly 484 00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:58,440 Speaker 1: what they were doing. I think they were catching them 485 00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:01,200 Speaker 1: in what would be some sort of find butterfly net 486 00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:04,480 Speaker 1: or something and just snagging them, skinning them out, and 487 00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:05,239 Speaker 1: skinning them. 488 00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:07,440 Speaker 3: So someone can have some little shit and feather like 489 00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:08,120 Speaker 3: that on a. 490 00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:10,840 Speaker 1: This on a hat on their clothing. 491 00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:16,920 Speaker 4: Yeah, and you'd never like, I'm surprised with that volume, 492 00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:20,480 Speaker 4: there'd be more accounts than mentions of it. 493 00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:26,439 Speaker 1: Well, I've blurbed a new hummingbird book about two years ago, 494 00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:31,120 Speaker 1: and according to this particular book, the trade in hummingbirds 495 00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:36,960 Speaker 1: skins in Latin America is still a going enterprise. So 496 00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:42,800 Speaker 1: hummingbirds evidently are still being killed and skinned to preserve 497 00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:46,759 Speaker 1: their their feathers intact. And then apparently the skins are 498 00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:48,400 Speaker 1: dried and they're used On. 499 00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:49,520 Speaker 3: You know, I'm not. 500 00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:52,359 Speaker 1: Sure exactly how they're used, but supposedly it's a going thing. 501 00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:54,480 Speaker 4: I tell you, you want to get on my kid's 502 00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:57,320 Speaker 4: bad side, you'd bring harm to a hummingbird. 503 00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:00,560 Speaker 3: I think a lot of people would fail that. 504 00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:03,359 Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would. 505 00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:09,640 Speaker 2: Yeah, Audubon is one of those characters that from a 506 00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:12,319 Speaker 2: contemporary perspective, there's a little bit of irony in what 507 00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:15,239 Speaker 2: they do, and that he's killing these birds. You know, 508 00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:17,040 Speaker 2: you think of the Audubon society. 509 00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:21,160 Speaker 3: This is over. This is over people. You don't want 510 00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:24,520 Speaker 3: this question, no, go ahead and ask it. Go ahead. 511 00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:28,239 Speaker 3: I just is over observed. I feel over observed that 512 00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:33,040 Speaker 3: killed birds. Well, it's like it's it's inconsequential in the 513 00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:33,720 Speaker 3: scheme of things. 514 00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:37,960 Speaker 2: I just I think what I'm interested in is this 515 00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:42,399 Speaker 2: early I mean some he's not a scientist, he's he's 516 00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:44,680 Speaker 2: working in the field of natural history, and I think 517 00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:50,120 Speaker 2: like there's a really interesting distinction between natural history and 518 00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:53,440 Speaker 2: and quote unquote modern science, where a lot of it 519 00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:58,240 Speaker 2: just tests to do with description and collection and cataloging, 520 00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:03,440 Speaker 2: and you know, inherently in that you're killing a lot 521 00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:07,680 Speaker 2: of stuff, like up until the early twentieth century. There's 522 00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:11,759 Speaker 2: a lot of people who are just collecting things. 523 00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:16,240 Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it's regarded that sort of collection is regarded 524 00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:19,160 Speaker 1: as one of the things actually that contributed to the 525 00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:25,360 Speaker 1: demise of the Carolina parakeet. No, there were naturalists collecting. 526 00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:27,319 Speaker 2: For this question does get us somewhere new. 527 00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:31,920 Speaker 1: There was a naturalist in about nineteen oh one collecting 528 00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:33,960 Speaker 1: for it was either the Smithsonian or for the American 529 00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:38,680 Speaker 1: Museum of Natural History, who found a flock of about 530 00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:43,200 Speaker 1: forty Carolina parakeets because they existed in flocks, and he 531 00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:48,840 Speaker 1: killed all but like two for the specimen collection for 532 00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:51,440 Speaker 1: the museum he was working for. Now, I would say, 533 00:40:51,719 --> 00:40:55,760 Speaker 1: in Autubn's time, Autobn's take to be able to paint 534 00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:59,920 Speaker 1: these birds is, I mean, it's pretty paltry, it's small. 535 00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:02,960 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a specimen. 536 00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:04,200 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a specimen. 537 00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:06,359 Speaker 4: But then one can almost say, thank god he did, 538 00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:09,200 Speaker 4: because now you have these renderings and understandings of them 539 00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:11,360 Speaker 4: that if he just said, like, I don't. 540 00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:14,319 Speaker 2: Know, and we have the actual I just yeah, I 541 00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:17,840 Speaker 2: mean I think like, I just think it's not that 542 00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:21,919 Speaker 2: he contributed to the decline of these species, but it's 543 00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:25,680 Speaker 2: it's sort of anathma to our contemporary sensibilities. So you're like, Hey, 544 00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:27,759 Speaker 2: I'm into birds, let me kill a bunch of them 545 00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:28,280 Speaker 2: and drama. 546 00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:31,920 Speaker 3: It's not I have friends that work on entomology, surveys, 547 00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:38,480 Speaker 3: aquatic invertebrates, baseline data collection, and stream systems. You'd be 548 00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:39,120 Speaker 3: a ghast. 549 00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:42,560 Speaker 4: You'd be a gast because they'll take those invertebrates and 550 00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:44,320 Speaker 4: put them little vials of alcohol. 551 00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:50,360 Speaker 3: Heavens, I told you, I told you to be a gas. 552 00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:56,280 Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean so, I understand your question completely, Randall. 553 00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:58,239 Speaker 3: And but. 554 00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:03,320 Speaker 1: I think that this has been a feature of and 555 00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:07,560 Speaker 1: of science for a long time. And autoban, I mean, 556 00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:12,600 Speaker 1: Ottoman's not doing it specifically to preserve collections and museums, 557 00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:16,839 Speaker 1: although I do have on my phone right now a 558 00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:21,239 Speaker 1: photograph of the specimen, two of them in fact, that 559 00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:25,719 Speaker 1: are just beautifully preserved Carolina parakeets that he collected on 560 00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:28,680 Speaker 1: that eighteen forty three Western Oh where are those? 561 00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:29,520 Speaker 3: Are they in New York? 562 00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:31,160 Speaker 1: I think they're in New York. 563 00:42:31,239 --> 00:42:35,839 Speaker 4: Yeah, I held one, you held well, they had everything. Man, 564 00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:41,720 Speaker 4: it was at the Ornithological you know, the Cornell Cornell 565 00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:43,960 Speaker 4: that's right, Yeah, they pull out that they kind of 566 00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:45,880 Speaker 4: got like all the really good stuff in one tray. 567 00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:46,440 Speaker 3: Yeah. 568 00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:50,360 Speaker 4: And they had Carolina parakeets that had passenger pigeon. Yeah, 569 00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:54,319 Speaker 4: and that had that iverybild woodpecker I have I. 570 00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:57,560 Speaker 1: Have not seen Yeah, wow, ivorybuild woodpecker a specimen of that? 571 00:42:57,600 --> 00:42:58,600 Speaker 3: Am I making that upfill? 572 00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:01,279 Speaker 1: So I you know. And so one of the things 573 00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:04,040 Speaker 1: that's happening, which you know very well because you and 574 00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:07,440 Speaker 1: I both are serving on a particular advisory board that 575 00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:10,080 Speaker 1: does this kind of thing, scientists are going and looking 576 00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:14,200 Speaker 1: at that those kind of specimens for DNA in order 577 00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:19,960 Speaker 1: to possibly clone a line of say blackfooted ferris, which 578 00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:25,879 Speaker 1: has actually happened that has additional genetic diversity so that 579 00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:29,799 Speaker 1: the present population, which is based on only eight animals, 580 00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:33,839 Speaker 1: is a little more diverse. So those specimens that were 581 00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:37,239 Speaker 1: collected and Autumn certainly collected some of them have are 582 00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:40,400 Speaker 1: actually turning out to be really important for modern science 583 00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:44,400 Speaker 1: and maybe even for you know, preserving endangered species today. 584 00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:45,920 Speaker 3: But yeah, he. 585 00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:50,360 Speaker 1: Shot them and he wired the animals into poses to 586 00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:52,719 Speaker 1: be able to paint them. And so when you look 587 00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:56,719 Speaker 1: at those marvelous paintings that he did of birds, and 588 00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:58,839 Speaker 1: later he did the same thing with the mammals when 589 00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:01,879 Speaker 1: he went west. I mean, that's what they are. They're 590 00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:05,759 Speaker 1: actually already dead. But he would wire them into these 591 00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:08,160 Speaker 1: lifelike poses and then he would try to paint them 592 00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:11,040 Speaker 1: really fast before they would start to lose the luster 593 00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:15,360 Speaker 1: of the feathers and the eye, the liquid of the 594 00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:18,080 Speaker 1: eye and all, because of course that vanishes really fast. 595 00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:21,799 Speaker 1: And he learned to paint. George Callen did the same thing, 596 00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:25,399 Speaker 1: learned to be ambidextrous painting them so he could paint 597 00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:26,320 Speaker 1: with seriously. 598 00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:30,879 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you know Audubon, I dodn't know. He died 599 00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:34,480 Speaker 4: probably not as young in his time as would seem now, 600 00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:39,200 Speaker 4: but sixty one sixty one. Yeah, his friend visited him. 601 00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:41,160 Speaker 4: You mentioned his friend visit him and talks about his 602 00:44:41,239 --> 00:44:42,880 Speaker 4: mind was in shambles or somewhere. 603 00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:45,279 Speaker 3: Yeah, did he go did he go mad? Or did 604 00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:47,200 Speaker 3: he have dementia? No, he had dementia. 605 00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:51,319 Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, that's what Bachman, who was Bakman, both 606 00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:54,759 Speaker 1: of Ottoman's sons that they married sisters, and so they 607 00:44:54,760 --> 00:44:59,360 Speaker 1: had the same father in law, John Bachmann, who participated 608 00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:01,960 Speaker 1: in that Western expedition. And Bachman was a very good 609 00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:05,439 Speaker 1: naturalist himself, and that's where that comes from he went 610 00:45:05,480 --> 00:45:10,759 Speaker 1: to see Autubun and what he meant by his mind 611 00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,920 Speaker 1: as all in shambles is that he had dementia. He 612 00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:16,960 Speaker 1: didn't recognize Bachmann or or kind of no, pretty much 613 00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:17,719 Speaker 1: of anything at all. 614 00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:22,600 Speaker 4: What was the understanding of that at that time period. 615 00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:27,719 Speaker 1: Nobody really knew what it was, what caused it, But 616 00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:32,000 Speaker 1: it was like cancer was which we also didn't understand. 617 00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:35,880 Speaker 1: It was an observable thing. Yeah, and that was it 618 00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:39,120 Speaker 1: was attributed just to old age, although I mean even 619 00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:42,879 Speaker 1: then sixty one was not very old, and he's only 620 00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:47,319 Speaker 1: sixty one years old when when he passes away, But 621 00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:54,839 Speaker 1: you know, he had lived this really remarkable life, and 622 00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:56,799 Speaker 1: as I tried to convey in the episode, I mean, 623 00:45:56,840 --> 00:46:01,000 Speaker 1: he left us with this. So when you're trying to 624 00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:06,800 Speaker 1: recreate a past world, somebody who both writes and also 625 00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:09,960 Speaker 1: can come up with a visual representation of what they're seeing, 626 00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:13,520 Speaker 1: in Ottoban's case, being able to paint things. I mean, 627 00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:17,120 Speaker 1: that's a hell of a record to leave to the future. 628 00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:21,520 Speaker 1: And so that's probably why people like that survive down 629 00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:25,799 Speaker 1: through the timelines the way they do is that they 630 00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:31,520 Speaker 1: have given us a way to access decades, sometimes centuries 631 00:46:31,560 --> 00:46:35,719 Speaker 1: in the past, and I think his Autoban's writing is 632 00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:40,120 Speaker 1: as compelling and as worthwhile as you know his art 633 00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:44,440 Speaker 1: and rendering all these creatures. But his task that he 634 00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:48,640 Speaker 1: set himself talked about Catland before Catland of course, wanted 635 00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:51,879 Speaker 1: to preserve everything he could about American Indians before they 636 00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:56,440 Speaker 1: were lost to time and history. And what Autoban's task was. 637 00:46:56,960 --> 00:47:02,240 Speaker 1: He wanted to paint every animal, every mammal, and every 638 00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:05,479 Speaker 1: bird that existed in North America. He wanted to get 639 00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:09,200 Speaker 1: every one of them in his books. So he was 640 00:47:09,200 --> 00:47:11,480 Speaker 1: trying to do a complete natural history. Of course he 641 00:47:12,080 --> 00:47:15,200 Speaker 1: as we know, many many things have been discovered since 642 00:47:15,239 --> 00:47:19,000 Speaker 1: Ottoman's time, but for his time, he was pretty thorough. 643 00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:21,600 Speaker 3: I want to run any more questions by me for 644 00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:22,640 Speaker 3: approval renal. 645 00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:26,319 Speaker 2: I think so. 646 00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:26,919 Speaker 3: One of the. 647 00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:30,040 Speaker 2: One of the things that I picked up on the 648 00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:35,800 Speaker 2: article in the episode is like I think of Audubon 649 00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:41,720 Speaker 2: as being this very clinical, descriptive, methodical artist and writer, 650 00:47:42,480 --> 00:47:46,160 Speaker 2: but he also has this sort of flare for the dramatic, 651 00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:49,000 Speaker 2: and he's got this personality that kind of reminds me 652 00:47:49,040 --> 00:47:53,480 Speaker 2: of Buffalo Bill. And then I recalled that when we 653 00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:57,800 Speaker 2: were working on our Boon project. The story about Daniel 654 00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:02,680 Speaker 2: Boone barking squirrels is written down by Audubon, who claims to. 655 00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:03,120 Speaker 3: Have met him. 656 00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:06,280 Speaker 2: Wilson, No, no, this is from Audubon. 657 00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:07,160 Speaker 3: Well that was Audubon. 658 00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:08,920 Speaker 2: Yeah, he claims to have met him when he went 659 00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:13,040 Speaker 2: out west or when he went to Kentucky. But the 660 00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:16,600 Speaker 2: dates for when Audubon claims to have met Boone don't 661 00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:19,520 Speaker 2: really line up with when Boone was actually in Kentucky. 662 00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:21,160 Speaker 3: Oh I had in my head for a minute that 663 00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:24,480 Speaker 3: was that John Philson. Dude was a biographer. 664 00:48:24,640 --> 00:48:27,480 Speaker 2: Yeah, Philson is the biographer, but Audubon is where we 665 00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:30,680 Speaker 2: get the story of and it doesn't line up. 666 00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:33,120 Speaker 3: Like Boone wasn't in the state that Audubon says he 667 00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:33,400 Speaker 3: was in. 668 00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:37,680 Speaker 2: Yeah, and so and there was you know the It 669 00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:43,840 Speaker 2: made me wonder like, how are there other instances we know, 670 00:48:44,080 --> 00:48:46,920 Speaker 2: like what other sort of colorful aspects are there to 671 00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:50,520 Speaker 2: to Audubon's character, because remembering that anecdote made me think 672 00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:55,720 Speaker 2: like maybe this guy uh had did this more often 673 00:48:55,760 --> 00:48:58,759 Speaker 2: than not in terms of inventing things that happened to 674 00:48:58,840 --> 00:48:59,359 Speaker 2: him or. 675 00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:04,960 Speaker 1: Well he was Yeah, he was egotistical and so he 676 00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:13,000 Speaker 1: wasn't beyond I think creating a story like that to 677 00:49:13,880 --> 00:49:19,480 Speaker 1: sort of illustrate his you know, his presence in the world, 678 00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:24,040 Speaker 1: how he got around, who all he met. I mean 679 00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:26,080 Speaker 1: he you know, when you read about the years when 680 00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:28,319 Speaker 1: he's in Europe, I mean he he claims to have 681 00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:31,960 Speaker 1: met freaking everybody, you know, everybody who was in Europe. 682 00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:36,879 Speaker 1: And so, yeah, it doesn't surprise me, Randall. I don't 683 00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:40,880 Speaker 1: know that that particular story about the autoban writing about 684 00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:45,200 Speaker 1: boon barking squirrels, but yeah, the fact. 685 00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:47,280 Speaker 3: Even claims they sat down and had a dinner of squirrels. 686 00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:50,560 Speaker 2: Yeah, he sat on the river bank with him for 687 00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:54,960 Speaker 2: the afternoon. They got all they needed for dinner. But 688 00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:57,920 Speaker 2: there are characters like that sort of when you peel 689 00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:00,120 Speaker 2: back to Veneer, you realize that there's a lot of 690 00:50:01,600 --> 00:50:06,480 Speaker 2: you know, fabrication maybe or self aggrandizement. 691 00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:11,440 Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think Ottoman was not above that. Yeah, 692 00:50:11,719 --> 00:50:18,040 Speaker 1: as I you know, said he he was not generous 693 00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:23,279 Speaker 1: about other people, anybody else who you know, who had 694 00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:27,800 Speaker 1: any kind of success. Autobn tended to kind of detegrate 695 00:50:28,680 --> 00:50:30,279 Speaker 1: their success, and so he. 696 00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:32,800 Speaker 3: Wasn't even besides other painters, Yeah, even. 697 00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:36,160 Speaker 1: Besides other painters. But I mean probably the most uh, 698 00:50:36,920 --> 00:50:39,319 Speaker 1: you know, the most well known example of it is 699 00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:43,480 Speaker 1: that meeting between him and Alexander Wilson. I mean, Alexander 700 00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:48,399 Speaker 1: Wilson is the true beginning of American ornithology. This guy 701 00:50:48,640 --> 00:50:50,759 Speaker 1: did nine He was a Scotsman who had immigrated to 702 00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:56,520 Speaker 1: America and he did nine volumes of books about American birds. 703 00:50:56,520 --> 00:50:58,680 Speaker 1: I mean he never went west or anything like that. 704 00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:02,440 Speaker 1: But before where Auduburn was ever on the scene, Alexander 705 00:51:02,440 --> 00:51:05,719 Speaker 1: Wilson was doing this and he was not nearly as 706 00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:09,200 Speaker 1: good a painter as Oudobn was, but he was a 707 00:51:09,200 --> 00:51:12,839 Speaker 1: pretty good scientific observer. And the scientists in America that's 708 00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:16,040 Speaker 1: what they appreciated about him. But he and Audubon met 709 00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:20,360 Speaker 1: at one point and when because Wilson was traveling around 710 00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:22,600 Speaker 1: the country. When you had a book like that, what 711 00:51:22,680 --> 00:51:26,600 Speaker 1: you did was you sold subscriptions to it, and you 712 00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:32,359 Speaker 1: without a publisher, a marketing and publicity departments to help 713 00:51:32,440 --> 00:51:35,560 Speaker 1: you sell your work. Now, you just went around the 714 00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:39,400 Speaker 1: country and you knocked on here's a town that's got 715 00:51:39,640 --> 00:51:43,200 Speaker 1: two doctors in it and a lawyer. Those people will 716 00:51:43,239 --> 00:51:46,160 Speaker 1: have the money and the educations and the interest to 717 00:51:46,280 --> 00:51:50,719 Speaker 1: want a book about birds, and so Wilson was traveling 718 00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:54,920 Speaker 1: through Kentucky and he walked into a hardware store, apparently, 719 00:51:55,480 --> 00:51:57,760 Speaker 1: and it was a hardware store that John James Oudoburn 720 00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:02,720 Speaker 1: was running. And as Audubn tells the story, Wilson comes 721 00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:06,239 Speaker 1: in and says, I'm selling subscriptions to a new book 722 00:52:06,280 --> 00:52:08,880 Speaker 1: on birds. And of course Ottobon has already been working 723 00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:13,120 Speaker 1: on his own, he's already And so Wilson opens up, 724 00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:17,239 Speaker 1: you know, his portfolio and shows Audubon eight or ten 725 00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:21,600 Speaker 1: of his paintings, and Audubon says, you know, he nods 726 00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:24,640 Speaker 1: and everything, and yeah, that's really nice. And then he 727 00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:27,319 Speaker 1: reaches out of the counter and pulls some of his 728 00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:30,080 Speaker 1: own paintings out and puts them on the counter. And 729 00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:36,719 Speaker 1: according to Audubon's version of things, Wilson was stunned into 730 00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:40,960 Speaker 1: silence and gathered up his portfolio and turned around and 731 00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:41,640 Speaker 1: marched out. 732 00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:42,720 Speaker 3: Of the store immediately. 733 00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:48,120 Speaker 1: Wilson's version is he hardly even recounts having. 734 00:52:47,960 --> 00:52:52,440 Speaker 3: Met let alone, it being like a career ending. 735 00:52:52,680 --> 00:52:54,439 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's like that. 736 00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:57,560 Speaker 4: So you know, there's that, and there'll be blood. Daniel 737 00:52:57,600 --> 00:53:00,759 Speaker 4: day Lewis's character has the line he says, there's a 738 00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:04,040 Speaker 4: competitiveness in me. I don't want anyone else to succeed 739 00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:04,360 Speaker 4: but me. 740 00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:10,320 Speaker 1: I think Automat had that same feeling. 741 00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:14,040 Speaker 3: All right, Well, thank you dan Oh, you bet