John James Audubon and the natural history of a hoax
Last edited Mon Dec 18, 2017, 10:15 AM - Edit history (2)
From https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/may/03/john-james-audubon-and-the-natural-history-of-a-hoax
Eek! ... a page from Constantine Rafinesque’s field notebook showing the ‘big-eye jumping mouse’. Photograph: Smithsonian Institution Archives. Image # SIA2012-6065
Alison Flood
Tuesday 3 May 2016 11.43 EDT
Artist and naturalist John James Audubon was a master of ornithological illustration, and also, it turns out, master of the prank.
A new paper in the journal Archives of Natural History, Pranked By Audubon, sees the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History curator Neal Woodman lay out how the author of The Birds of America took time out from his superb illustrations to invent a series of “wild rats of the western states” and other creations with which to fool the naturalist Constantine Rafinesque.
...
Rafinesque had been staying with Audubon, and Woodman points to speculation that the invention of the “fantastic animals” could have been revenge for the “violin incident” recounted in his tale The Eccentric Naturalist, which was inspired by his visit – and which bears recounting in full:
We had all retired to rest. Every person I imagined was in deep slumber save myself, when of a sudden I heard a great uproar in the naturalist’s room. I got up, reached the place in a few moments, and opened the door, when, to my astonishment, I saw my guest running about the room naked, holding the handle of my favourite violin, the body of which he had battered to pieces against the walls in attempting to kill the bats which had entered by the open window, probably attracted by the insects flying around his candle. I stood amazed, but he continued jumping and running round and round, until he was fairly exhausted, when he begged me to procure one of the animals for him, as he felt convinced they belonged to ‘a new species’. Although I was convinced of the contrary, I took up the bow of my demolished Cremona, and administering a smart tap to each of the bats as it came up, soon got specimens enough. The war ended, I again bade him good night, but could not help observing the state of the room. It was strewed with plants, which it would seem he had arranged into groups, but which were now scattered about in confusion. ‘Never mind, Mr Audubon,’ quoth the eccentric naturalist, ‘never mind, I’ll soon arrange them again. I have the bats, and that’s enough.’
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More at link.
Link to Smithsonian article, "Audubon Pranked Fellow Naturalist by Making Up Fake Rodents":
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/audubon-pranked-fellow-naturalist-making-fake-rodents-180958907/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Yes something is screwy. Wikipedia is on the their fund drive so they may be punishing us for not contributing? 
which uses & lpar; and & rpar; (without the spaces), but that wasn't cutting it. The HTML lookup table in Community Help is not showing properly anymore, so maybe Elad changed something more in the further aftermath of the hack ...
Here's an arhcive of the post, it doesn't contain punct'n though 
... http://web.archive.org/web/20120419091647/http://www.democraticunderground.com/124025017
