SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 113 



It is interesting to notice that Swainson kept his 

 promise about the woodpeckers, and in 1831 named one, 

 which had been obtained from Louisiana, Picus audu- 

 boni; w although Audubon later repudiated it, saying 

 that he believed it to represent only an immature state 

 of the common Downy Woodpecker, he returned the 

 compliment by dedicating to Swainson one of his war- 

 blers, Sylvia, now Helmaria, swainsonii. 



When William Swainson brought to a close his 

 labors on the Cabinet Cyclopaedia in 1840, a part of the 

 eleventh volume was devoted to a biography of natural- 

 ists. 20 In this little work Audubon was accorded a page, 

 Alexander Wilson received eight, while the author de- 

 voted fourteen pages to himself. The talented Mac- 

 Gillivray, whose memorable History of British Birds 

 had then advanced to its third volume, was studiously 

 ignored, and was referred to only in a footnote as "Mr. 

 Gilvray"; but he was of necessity a sharer in the follow- 



10 See Ornithological Biography, vol. v, p. 194; and Theodore Gill 

 (Bibl. No. 206), The Osprey, vol. iv and v. It seems that Dr. James 

 Trudeau, out of ignorance or disregard for Swainson's designation, later 

 named a woodpecker, obtained near New Orleans in 1837, Picus auduboni, 

 and by a strange coincidence, as Dr. Gill has noticed, the same name 

 was given by two different naturalists to the same bird, now regarded 

 as a variety and known as Dryobates villosus auduboni. 



20 The Cabinet Cyclopedia was published by Messrs. Longman, Orme 

 & Company, and edited by Rev. Dionysius Lardner. Swainson wrote eleven 

 of the twelve volumes devoted to natural history. The volume to which 

 we refer is entitled Taxidermy, Bibliography, and Biography, by William 

 Swainson, A. C. G. [Assistant Commissary-General], F. R. S. & L. S., 

 Hon. F. C. P. S. etc., and of several foreign societies (see Bibliography, 

 No. 170). The Literary Gazette for August 8, 1840, in noticing this work, 

 said: "Perhaps the amusing and frequent illustration of his character is 

 to be found in the autobiographical sketch of himself, which he has 

 not only included in this portion of his volume, but induced his publishers 

 to forward on a separate sheet with the subjoined note: 



" 'Messrs. Longman, Orme, & Co., will feel particularly obliged if the 

 Editor of the will permit the above Auto- 

 biography to appear in his columns at the first suitable opportunity.' 



"'39 Paternoster Row, July 29, 1840.'" 



Quoted by Theodore Gill (Bibl. No. 206), The Osprey, vol. iv, p. 105 

 (1900). 



