28 The Wilson Bulletin — No. fiO. 



orange tints liave been obliterated ! . . . Shame upon him for 

 employing such colors. !" ^ 



Ord, Say, Peale, and Audubon furnished him with notes, 

 chiefly biographical ; and a Mr. Leadbeater, of London, sent 

 some of his rarest specimens across the ocean that Bonaparte 

 might examine and paint them on this side of the Atlantic. The 

 author in his preface of the first volume, says: "To my 

 friends, Mr. Thomas Say, and Dr. John D. Godman, my sin- 

 cere thanks are due for the care they have bestowed in pre- 

 venting the introductions of foreign expressions, or phrases 

 not idiomatic, into my composition." Youmans says that al- 

 most all of Bonaparte's publications while in America were 

 corrected and arranged for the press by Say. Yet he almost 

 immediately writes of the latter : " Having been intolerant of 

 literary studies in his youth, he never attained too happy com- 

 mand of language " ; and also, " When Dr. Baldwin, the bot- 

 anist and historian of ]\Iajor Long's first expedition died. Say 

 refused the opportunity, which his commander ofi^ered him, of 

 continuing the journal of the expedition, alleging that he was 

 incompetent for this responsible employment." - 



Exclusive of his own work, Bonaparte seemed to have 

 placed his chief reliance in his engraver. " Lawson can do no 

 wrong." Alexander Lawson, the best engraver of birds in 

 America, was born near Lanark, Scotland, in 1773, and came 

 to Philadelphia in 17!*4. "A tall thin man of large frame, and 

 athletic; full of animation, and inclined to. be satirical, but as 

 I should judge, full of good feeling and the love of truth. 

 Krinimcl • and A\'ilson he speaks of in ra])turous terms of 

 commendation, both as to talents and moral worth." * It is 

 probable that to Lawson, Bonaparte is indebted for much of 

 the excellence and accuracy of the plates. He relates of a cap- 

 tive Condor that, " during Mr. Lawson's almost daily visits 

 for the purpose of measuring and examining accurately every 



' ronn Monthly, 1879, p. 454. 



"Pioneers of Science in Americi. ISlXi, pp. 221-222. 



" Johann Ludwij; Kimniel, n .vonnjij i)ainter of extraordiiiMrv Kifts. 

 drowned while hathing near I'hiladelphia in 1821. 



* Dunlap's History of the Rise and Pi'ogress oT tlie Arts of De- 

 .sign in the United States, 1834. 



