IfiS The Wilson Bulletin — No. 65. 



Falls, otherwise the winter appears entirely lost to him, owing 

 to the widespread poverty and his inability to collect barely 

 enough from his school to pay his board ; so that it was not 

 until the following spring that he began drawing the Canada 

 Jay and Northern Shrike, the supposedly new birds he had 

 brought from the Mohawk ; finishing them in ten days, far 

 superior to anything before attempted. Wilson discovered ere 

 long that he had genius for has not genius been defined as 

 infinite patience or the union of passion and patience ? 



His last drawings were transmitted to Thomas Jefiferson, 

 from whom he received a most kindly acknowledgement ; and 

 the mention of a mysterious bird the President was unable to 

 fully describe, throws Wilson into a fever of excitement to 

 procure. As Bartram surmises, it proves to be the Wood 

 Thrush. 



July 2nd, 1805, he again addresses Bartram : 'T dare say 

 you will smile at my presumption, when I tell you that I have 

 seriously begun to make a collection of drawings of the birds 

 tO' be found in Pennsylvania, or that occasionally pass through 

 it ; twenty-eight, as a beginning, I send for your opinion. 

 They are, I hope, inferior to what I shall produce, though as 

 close copies of the original as I could make. One or two of 

 these I cannot find either in your nomenclature, or among the 

 seven volumes of Edwards. . . . Criticise these, my dear friend, 

 without fear of ofifending me — this will instruct, but not dis- 

 courage me. — For there is not among all our naturalists, one 

 who knows so well what they are, and how they ought to be 

 represented. . . . To your advice and encouraging encomiums 

 I am indebted for these few specimens and all that will follow." 



The discovery that many years before, Edwards had etched 

 the plates of his own series of volumes on Natural history, was 

 responsible for a like attempt by Wilson under the instruction 

 of Lawson. The first plate was a failure, but in the trans- 

 mission of a proof of the second, January 4th, ISOG, he an- 

 nounces his ambition to publish : "Mr. Wilson's afifectionate 

 compliments to Mr. Bartram ; and sends for his amusement 

 and correction, another proof oi his Birds of the United 



