48 MEMOIR OP 



while it continued to call forth additional enco- 

 miums in its praise. 



After this period, unless the information contained 

 in Wilson's correspondence with his friends, when on 

 his laborious journeys over the length and breadth 

 of the United States, upon the business of the Book, 

 but which are too long for insertion, we possess 

 little that is interesting respecting our author,, In 

 his last expedition, he was accompanied by Mr. 

 Ord, his excellent biographer; and on their return 

 home to Philadelphia, his anxiety to complete and 

 perfect the eighth volume, which he fondly imagined 

 would nearly if not wholly terminate the labours 

 upon which he had periled his reputation, brought 

 on an attack of his old complaints, now gradually, 

 from fatigue and excitement, become more frequent 

 and severe. He was seized with dysentery, and his 

 exhausted constitution yielded to its force, after an 

 illness of ten days' duration. This melancholy event 

 happened at Philadelphia on the 23d of August, 

 1813, in the forty-eighth year of his age. Thus 

 closed a very chequered life, though active and be- 

 nevolent in the extreme, ever devoted to the good of 

 mankind, by his ardent desire to illustrate and lay 

 before them the works of his Creator. 



Wilson's great Work, " The American Ornitho- 

 logy, or the Natural History of the Birds of the 

 United States," in eight large quarto volumes, con- 

 taining seventy-six plates, upon which are repre- 

 sented upwards of three hundred and twenty birds, 

 together with some of their eggs, nests, &c., may 



