Burns — On Alexander Wilson. 31 



Alexander Wilson asked, I was asked to discontinue this 

 work." Like Wilson's Louisville note, this needs some expla- 

 nation. Aside from the knowledge that Audubon was in a 

 manner persona non grata to both Titian Peale, the artist (of 

 whom he ])itterly complained that after he had shown him all 

 his drawing's, refused him the sig'ht of a new bird in his pos- 

 session), and Alexander Lawson, the engraver (who severely 

 criticised and refused to engrave his paintings), Bonaparte 

 would scarcely have trusted an untried person, however tal- 

 ented, in any other capacity than that of colorer. The refer- 

 ence to Wilson must relate to his contract as colorist to the 

 publishers of his work, this being the only employment in 

 which he received pay ; and of course cannot apply to the 

 former's work, since Bonaparte was scarcely more than ten 

 years of age at the time of Wilson's death. 



With the appearance of the first volume in 1S35, containing 

 land birds only, Bonaparte remarked that owing to the indus- 

 try of Wilson he was unable to adduce a single new Pennsyl- 

 vanian bird, and for tlie contents he was obliged to resort to 

 the western territories. Many of these birds had already been 

 made known by Say, and he was fortunate in procuring the 

 drawings made at the time from the freshly killed specimens 

 by Peale, the ornithologist of the party. It was planned to 

 have the second volume contain the water birds, and the third 

 to chiefly consist of Peale's gleanings from Florida, so that 

 with the nine previously published by Wilson and Ord, the 

 whole suliject would have been ehibraced in twelve volumes; 

 but extended researches to the most opposite and remote parts 

 of the Union brought enough land birds to make up two vol- 

 umes ; and the water birds were reserved for a fourth volume. 



Bonaparte returned to Europe some time in November, 



1826, since Audubon records in his European journal under 



the date of December 7, " I saw in this day's paper that 



Charles Bonaparte had arrived at Liverpool in the ' Canada ' 



from New York." Volume IT and III came out in 1828. The 



year previous he had published his Catalogue of the Birds of 



the United States,'^ and his Supplement to the Genera of North 



' Contributions to the Maclurian Lyceum of Arts and Sciences, I, 

 pp. 8-34. 



