In July, 1828, Dr. Thomas P. Jones[57] appropriated Audubon's Rattlesnake article, and published it without acknowledgment in the _Franklin Journal and American Mechanics' Magazine_ at Philadelphia. It should be noticed that at the close of 1827 Audubon's famous plate of the Mocking Birds defending their nest against the sinister designs of this formidable reptile had also been published in London. In this remarkable picture the rattlesnake was represented coiled about the nest, at the fatal moment when ready to strike its bold defenders, and in a tree. The anomaly was apparent, for the climbing habits of rattlesnakes were not then generally understood. This circumstance, together with some of Audubon's notes, repeated in certain cases from stories current in rural communities, furnished his detractors with a powerful lever, which they seized with avidity; snakes coiled in trees seemed suddenly to have produced a brood of another order which lurked in the grass, and it was many years before Audubon heard the last of his snake stories. The attack in the American press was laid to the door of George Ord, and it was not long before it was renewed with great vigor by his friend and correspondent in England, Charles Waterton, who proclaimed Audubon as a new and greater Münchhausen.[58] [Illustration: JOHN BACHMAN GEORGE ORD SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHELL CHARLES WATERTON BACHMAN FROM C. L. BACHMAN, "JOHN BACHMAN, D.D., LL.D."; ORD FROM "CASSINIA" FOR 1908; MITCHELL AFTER AN ENGRAVING BY GAMBER AND DICK OF A PORTRAIT BY HENRY INMAN; WATERTON FROM MOORE'S EDITION OF WATERTON'S "ESSAYS."] Dr. Jones immediately repudiated the article which he had unceremoniously appropriated, and under the title of "The Romance of the Rattlesnake" inserted the following notice in the August number of his magazine:[59] Just as the Editor was leaving Philadelphia for Washington, he was pressed for "more copy" by his printer, and hastily marked some articles for insertion, among which were "Notes on the Rattlesnake," by John James Audubon, F.R.S.E., M.W.S., &c. Time did not admit of reading the article, but it was seen that the writer professed to offer the "fruits of many years' observation, in countries where snakes abound." This with his titles, and the bold and splendid assurances which we had seen respecting the publication of his works, served as a password to his tissues of falsehoods, which would have been expunged from the proof, but for absence from the press. We had determined to publish a notice like the foregoing, when we received a note from a scientific friend, whose remarks are, at once, so pointed and correct, and so fully express our own ideas upon the subject, that we gladly adopt and insert them.