170 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 05. 



buffs unnumbered, unceasing toil day and night for a period 

 of seven years, without a pecunary gain of one cent. He had 

 already upward of one hundred drawings, many of which he 

 used in the total of three hundred and twenty figures, as given 

 by Ord. Leslie, who was an apprentice from 1808 to 1811 to 

 Messrs. Bradford and Inskeep, Booksellers, observes: "I 

 assisted him. tO' color some of his first plates. We worked 

 from birds he had shot and stuffed ; and I well remember the 

 eixtreme accuracy of his drawings, and how carefully he had 

 counted the number of scales on the tiny legs and feet of his 

 subjects. . . . Mr. Bradford was the most enterprising publisher 

 in America, and determined to make the 'Ornithology" as far 

 as he had to do with it, in the highest degree creditable to his 

 country. The types, which were very beautiful, were cast in 

 America. ... (by Binney and Ronaldson) ; and though at that 

 time paper was largely imported, he determined that the paper 

 should be of American manufacture ; and I remember that 

 lAmes, the papermaker, carried his patriotism so far that he 

 would use only American rags in making it. The result was 

 that the book far surpassed any other that had appeared in that 

 country ; and I apprehend, though it may have been equaled 

 in typography, has not before or since been equaled in its mat- 

 ter or plates. Unfortunately Wilson's book was necessarily 

 expensive and therefore not remunerative, but nothing dis- 

 couraged him." ^ 



Wilson states in the preface of his second volume : "Hither- 

 to, the whole materials and mechanical parts of this publication 

 have been the production of the United States, except the 

 colors .... it is not without regret and mortification, he is 

 obliged to confess that, for these, he has been principally in- 

 debted to Europe. ... In the present volume, some beautiful 

 native ochres have been introduced ; and one of the richest 

 yellows is from the laboratory of Messrs. Peale and Son of 

 the Museum of this City. Other tints of equal excellence are 

 confidently expected from the same quarter." He also acknow- 

 ledges the professional talents and constant attention of the 

 ^ Leslie's Autobiographical Recollections. 



