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Audubon was not, for the record, a kind of starry-eyed precursor to the Sierra Club, leaving nature untouched by human hands. It's telling that in his self-portrait, the artist is gripping neither palette nor paintbrush but a flintlock rifle. Gunning down his ornithological subjects was a necessary prelude to portraying them. Still, Audubon had quite a few of what we moderns would call conflicted moments, during which his admiration for, say, the Mississippi kite would temporarily halt the killing spree. Here the sight of a mother attempting to rescue its chick manages to stay his itchy trigger finger--for a millisecond, anyway:
My feelings at that moment I cannot express. I wished I had not discovered the poor bird; for who could have witnessed, without emotion, so striking an example of that affection which none but a mother can feel; so daring an act, performed in the midst of smoke, in the presence of a dreaded and dangerous enemy. I followed, however, and brought both to the ground at one shot, so keen is the desire of possession!The aesthetic and taxidermal impulses have torn apart many a naturalist since then (although, to be sure, the stricken diarist was later annoyed to discover that another animal had cut in on his action: "What was my mortification, when I found that some quadruped had devoured both!") Elsewhere, Audubon records the topography of the Mississippi Valley in vivid detail, or grumbles about the tight job market: "Visited several Public Institutions where I cannot say that I Was very politely received; in one or Two Notable ones (Not Willing to Mention Names) I was invitd to Walk in and then out in very quick order." Audubon's early-19-century orthography, which the editors have meticulously retained, may take some Getting Used To. And the sheer piling up of avian corpses can seem almost comical to a modern reader. Still, Audubon worshipped pretty thoroughly, and very productively, at the shrine of the natural world. And let's recall his verdict on Liverpool's industrial landscape, which he observed during a 1826 visit: "Naked streets look dull." If only there'd been a long-billed curlew on hand! --James Marcus
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