An amusing anecdote is preserved of the subject of his correspondence with the celebrated Buffon. The story used to be so well told by Daniel Webster--who probably heard it from the lips of the New Hampshire party to it--that we will give it in his words, as we find it recorded by an intelligent writer, and one evidently very familiar with Mr. Webster, in an article in Harper's Magazine, entitled "Social Hours of Daniel Webster:" "Mr. Webster, in the course of his remarks, narrated a story of Jefferson's overcoming Buffon on a question of Natural History. It was a dispute in relation to the moose--the moose-deer, as it is called in New Hampshire--and in one of the circles of _beaux-esprits_ in Paris. Mr. Jefferson contended for certain characteristics in the formation of the animal which Buffon stoutly denied. Whereupon Mr. Jefferson, without giving any one notice of his intention, wrote from Paris to General John Sullivan, then residing in Durham, New Hampshire, to procure and send him the whole frame of a moose. The General was no little astonished at a request he deemed so extraordinary; but, well acquainted with Mr. Jefferson, he knew he must have sufficient motive for it; so he made a hunting-party of his neighbors, and took the field. They captured a moose of unusual proportions, stripped it to the bone, and sent the skeleton to Mr. Jefferson, at a cost of fifty pounds sterling. On its arrival Mr. Jefferson invited Buffon and some other _savants_ to a supper at his house, and exhibited his dear-bought specimen. Buffon immediately acknowledged his error, and expressed his great admiration for Mr. Jefferson's energetic determination to establish the truth. 'I should have consulted you, Monsieur,' he said, with usual French civility, 'before publishing my book on Natural History, and then I should have been sure of my facts.'" This has the advantage of most such anecdotes of eminent men, of being accurate nearly to the letter, as far as it goes. The box of President Sullivan (he was President of New Hampshire), containing the bones, horns, and skin of a moose, and horns of the caribou elk, deer, spiked horned buck, etc., reached Mr. Jefferson on the 2d of October. They were the next day forwarded to Buffon--who, however, proved to be out of town. On his return, he took advantage of a supper at Jefferson's, to make the handsome admissions mentioned by Mr. Webster.[38] [38] See Randall's Life of Jefferson, vol. i., p. 490.