176 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 65. 



able subscribers to deliver the volumes as issued without re- 

 compense other than the privilege of first choice. He had 

 collected a great mass of personal information respecting the 

 birds of the South, but in this "the most ardoiis, expensive and 

 fatiguing expedition," he had expended all his savings. It 

 would appear from his letter to his father,^ dated from Phila- 

 delphia, June 15th, "about two nionths" after his return by 

 sea; that he had been as far south as St. Augustine, Florida; 

 but as his funds were too nearly exhausted tO' permit him to 

 visit Augusta, where he was told twelve or fifteen subscribers 

 awaited him, and there are no other evidences in his published 

 writings that he ever visited the mainland of that State ; it is 

 doubtless an error. It is evident, however, that he was as far 

 south as the Altamaha river, where he noted the Pileated 

 Woodpecker, and the Myrtle Warbler, "as late as the middle 

 of March." He recorded the Hooded Warbler at Savannah 

 "about the 20th of March," but it must have been a little earlier, 

 for he announced his arrival at New York, on his way home, 

 on the 22nd of the same month. - 



Wilson had not yet relinc^uished his position as Assistant 

 Editor of the Cyclopaedia, but doubtless did so previous to 

 his Western trip, which began January 30th, 1810, shortly 

 after the second volume of his Ornithology appeared. His 

 success during the last trip had encouraged the publishers to 

 increase the edition to 500 ; if indeed that number of sub- 

 scriptions were not absolutely necessary to meet expenses. On 

 foot he worked through the small towns of Southern Pennsyl- 

 vania: Lancaster, — the State Capitol, where Governor Simon 

 Snyder passed some good natured compliments on the work 

 as he readily added his name, and three sets were contracted 

 for the Legislature ; Columbia, York, Hanover, — where he 

 so neatly turned the argument upon Judge Hustetter,"'' who 

 had taken it upon himself to remark that the book "ought not 

 to be encouraged, as it was not within the reach of the com- 



^ Crichton's Life of Wilson. 



- See remarivs under the iiead of tlie Mocliingbird, American Or- 

 nithology. 



'Coues, Penn Monthly, 1879, p. 443. 



