A critical response to Halley's (2022) ‘Audubon’s diary transcripts were doctored to support his false claim of personally discovering Lincoln’s Sparrow Melospiza lincolnii (Audubon, 1834)’

Abstract

Summary. In a recent article (Bull. Brit. Orn. Cl. 142: 329–342), Matthew Halley contended that John James Audubon (1785–1851) lied about his discovery of Lincoln's Sparrow Melospiza lincolnii (Audubon, 1834) during his 1833 Labrador expedition. Extracts from the naturalist's journal, published after his death in a biography prepared by his widow, Lucy (1787–1874), states that he was aboard ship ‘Drawing all day’ when the specimen was collected by one of his assistants. Consequently, Halley submitted that Audubon’s claim in the Ornithological biography to having first sighted the bird was fabricated and that his granddaughter Maria R. Audubon (1843–1925) doctored her alternate version of the journal to be consistent before she destroyed the original. However, Halley overlooked critical facts, including evidence that Lucy’s manuscript was compiled and edited by others; the published work contained numerous errors; and the journal entries for the previous two weeks were misdated and sometimes conjoined from multiple days, proving that her journal was not a faithful transcription of the original.