ONTARf'^ 



Edwards, Forster, Pennant, Latham and Bartram, that the credit 

 belongs of making North American Ornithology what it was at this 

 period. 



' The name of Bartram will always be respected frem his connec- 

 tion with Wilson, yet Bartram himself was an advanced Ornithologist 

 for the time, and published a list of the birds of the Eastern United 

 States, naming many species as new, which, it is believed, were 

 credited by subsequent authors to Wilson. 



Prior to 1794, Alexander Wilson lived in his native town of 

 Paisley, in Renfrewshire, Scotland, where he followed his father's 

 steps as a hand-loom weaver. For a time he turned packman, but 

 the venture was not a success. He had also courted the Muses, 

 and had written several pieces, which were so well received as for a 

 time to be attributed to Burns. In 1*789, while carrying the pack, 

 he added to his wares a prospectus of a volume of his poems, in 

 which he said " if the pedlar should fail to be favored with sale, 

 then I hope you'll encourage the poet." But he did not succeed in 

 either capacity, and, in 1794 he came to America, w^here he was 

 once more a weavep. a pedlar, and a school-master. It was here, on 

 the banks of the Schuylkill, that he enjoyed the society of Bartram, 

 which was no doubt instrumental in deciding his future course in 

 life, and in all his troubles he received sympathy and encourage- 

 ment from this venerable friend and ardent lover of nature The 

 period of Wilson's labors here was bright but brief. The first 

 volume of his work appeared in 1808, and he died in 1813, before 

 the work was finished. With a cheap gun, hardly safe, with which 

 to secure his specimens, and only common paper on which to trace 

 his illustrations, he followed the subject with enthusiasm and perse- 

 verance, which earned for him a reputation far ahead of all 

 competitors at the time ; even now he is regarded as the father of 

 American Ornithology, and many of his descriptions of the birds 

 are still quoted as the best which have appeared on the subject. 

 After the untimely death of Wilson the work was carried on and 

 completed by his associate Ond, who brought out the eighth and 

 ninth volumes in 1811. In this work about 280 species of birds 

 were fully and faithfully described, and many of them shown in 

 colored illustration. 



In 182-1: Prince Lucien Bonaparte contributed to the Journal 



9 



