It is a tissue of the grossest falsehoods ever attempted to be palmed upon the credulity of mankind, and it is a pity that any thing like countenance should be given to it, by reproducing it in a respectable Journal. The romances of Audubon rival those of Münchausen, Mandeville, or even Mendez de Pinto, in the total want of truth, however short they may fall of them in the amusement they afford. This was rather a stiff charge to be made flatly against the reputation of any one without the most careful investigation, even upon the authority of "a scientific friend." Let us see, then, what basis, if any, really existed for such sweeping charges. In the paper which caused the trouble Audubon had described in great detail how he had seen a large rattlesnake pursue, capture, kill by constriction, and devour a gray squirrel. Before quoting his description of this singular encounter, we shall recall a passage which Audubon wrote in his journal at the time when it occurred,[60] when he was at "Oakley," the plantation of James Pirrie at St. Francisville, Bayou Sara, in the summer of 1821: "August 25. Finished drawing a very fine specimen of a rattlesnake, which measured five feet and seven inches, weighed six and a quarter pounds, and had ten rattles. Anxious to give it a position most interesting to a naturalist, I put it in that which the reptile commonly takes when on the point of striking madly with its fangs." After describing a rough dissection which he made of the rattlesnake's dental arsenal and poison apparatus, he added: "The heat of the weather was such that I could devote only sixteen hours to the drawing." The drawing thus referred to was undoubtedly used in the composition of his celebrated plate. To revert now to a mooted passage in Audubon's published paper: