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SOME PHILADELPHIA ORNITHOLOGICAL COLLEC- 

 TIONS AND COLLECTORS, 1784-1850. 1 



BY WITMER STONE. 



Ornithological study has for so many years centered around 

 the city of Washington and the National Museum, that many of 

 our ornithologists have well nigh forgotten, while some perhaps 

 have never known, that during the first half of the present century 

 Philadelphia stood preeminent in the American ornithological 

 world. 



The large majority of our early ornithologists were Philadel- 

 phians, either by birth or residence, and with the exception of 

 such works as the ' Birds of America ' and the several Reports of 

 Government Exploring Expeditions, nearly all the contributions to 

 ornithology appeared in the ' Journal ' and ' Proceedings ' of the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. In fact, every 

 American ornithologist of note, from Audubon to Baird, and the 

 various naturalists of the Pacific R. R. Surveys, appears as a 

 contributor to these journals. 



The ornithological collection of the Philadelphia Academy in 

 1850 was not only far ahead of any other in America but was 

 considered by such an eminent authority as Philip Lutley Sclater 

 to be " superior to that of any museum in Europe and therefore 

 the most perfect in existence." 



In view of the interest that attaches to these early collections 

 which are so closely associated with the beginnings of bird study 

 in America, it has seemed to me that it would be interesting and 

 fitting to the present occasion to look a little into the history of 

 the collections and of the men to whom they owe their existence. 



Alexander Wilson, from whom systematic American ornithol- 

 ogy may be said to date, came to Philadephia in 1794, and 

 though it was fourteen years before the first part of his work 

 appeared in print, he had already announced his intention of 

 making " a collection of all our finest birds" as early as 1803. 



1 Read before the Sixteenth Congress of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union, Washington, D. C, Nov. 15, 1898. 



