Four-and-a-Half Months’ Stay in New Harmony
Description of the region – Natural history – Messrs. Say, Lesueur, and Owen – Hunting excursions in Indiana and Illinois – Wabash, Fox River – Illinois prairies – Albion – Black River – Mr. Bodmer’s trip to New Orleans
January 11, 1833
Bright, clear sky. At seven thirty, −6°R [18.5°F, −7.5°C]. Our small stove is serving its purpose very well; it is now tolerably warm in the vicinity of it. Yesterday Mr. Say and I talked about American naturalists. Here [I offer] a few words about their significance. Thomas Say is certainly a very modest, conscientious, and well-informed man, and as a zoologist he seems to me to be the leading one. Harlan is a superficial compiler. Rafinesque seems to be more of a charlatan who tries to make himself important by means of his new genera and species. His interpretations are wholly inadequate, and Say and others have assured me that one could not use them to differentiate local species. Rafinesque once showed Say a drawing of a completely unknown animal and passed it off as his discovery. After the matter had been further investigated, it became clear he told Mr. Say that he had drawn the animal according to a fisherman’s description; many of his species are based on just such foundations.
Nuttall is a well-informed young man, his merits well known. In Godman, America lost a promising young naturalist. Cooper, a zoologist in New York, assisted Bonaparte; a fine naturalist. Dr. De Kay, zoologist, good naturalist. Dr. Mitchill died. [Titian] Peale has practical knowledge. Lea only about shells. Captain Leconte is well informed, writes about amphibians, is a specialist in batrachians. Mr. Halsey, a botanist in New York. Major Delafield is a good naturalist. Professor Dewey, who wrote about Carices, is a botanist. Dr. Troost (a Netherlander) in Nashville, good chemist and mineralogist. Mr. Ord, zoologist, ornithologist especially. Many students of conchology: Dr. Morton in Philadelphia. Conrad Hyde in Philadelphia, Mr. Nicklin in Philadelphia, Poulson in Philadelphia, Lea.
[At] twelve noon, −1°R [29.8°F, −1.3°C]. In the afternoon, Dreidoppel, who had shot a Falco sparverius from an oak close to the houses of Harmony, and I found a large number of prairie hens, probably twenty to thirty of them, but despite four shots we did not get any. They were driven from the tall trees so often that finally they completely dispersed. I spent the evening at the home of Mr. Lesueur, where we talked about natural history until about ten o’clock.