172 The Wilson Bulletin— No. 69. 



most probably modeled after the above. The statue is of bronze, 

 by John Mossman, the Glasgow sculpture, and rests on a ped- 

 estal of Aberdeen granite, nine feet in height. The figure is a 

 little larger than life, in long coat, boots, gun slun.g across 

 back, a pencil is held in his right hand, and the head is slightly 

 bowed to examine a dead bird in his left, and the elbow rests 

 on a stump, at the foot of which lies his open portfolio, in 

 which an inquisitive paroquet is peeping. This originated 

 with George Ord, when on a visit to Wilson's birthplace. He 

 subscribed liberally and afterwards sent funds from Philadel- 

 phia for the same purpose. Cf. Allibone's Grit. Diet, of Eng. 

 Lit. and Brit, and Am. Authors. 



The most popular, and by many acknowledged as the best, 

 American likeness, was drawn and engraved by John James 

 Barralet, an Irishman of French descent, of whom David 

 Edwin, the engraver, remarked : "He was the most eccentric 

 man I ever knew — he was lame from a dislocation of the 

 head of the thigh bone ; when he walked it was 'dot and go 

 one,' and the surtout coat he constantly wore in bad weather 

 was dipt in mud on the lame side, at every step he took. He 

 took large quantities of snuff — was extremely irritable, pas- 

 sionate, and very dirty in his .general appearance ; he was also 

 very poor." He represents Wilson in left profile, half length, 

 gun to shoulder, scroll and gun-barrel grasped by left hand, 

 and the usual high stock, tie and shirt ruff. Many engravers 

 have thrown the profile to the right in copying. The Rev. 

 Grosart sees little good in this American production, and char- 

 acterizes it "as a wretched daub, self-condemned," and Jos. 

 M. Wade avers that "it is too much dressed — too stiff for a 

 naturalist." asserting that the inventory of Wilson's ward- 

 robe would indicate that he never owned so much clothing at 

 one time. A coarse woodcut, showing the subject clothed in a 

 pea jacket buttoned to the chin, appearing in W^ebber's Ro- 

 mance of Sporting ; or. Wild Scenes and Wild Hunters, is 

 doubtless a crude caricature of the above, and, moreover, this 

 imspeakably repulsive representation was so greatly admired 

 by Wade that he reproduced it in the Ornithologist and Oolo- 



