ALEXANDER WILSON 57 



garden the pride of the famous old botanist, John Bartram. 

 Here there were living at this time the two sons of the original 

 proprietor, John and William Bartram. The latter, then a man, 

 of sixty-one years of age, was a botanist of perhaps quite as much 

 ability as his father, while he also possessed a hoard of knowledge 

 on general natural history equalled by but few men of his time. 

 He had traveled when a young man through Georgia, Carolina 

 and Florida and published a report on his travels. Being ex- 

 ceedingly modest, however, he never sought fame by further pub- 

 lications, though he generously aided all who came to him for as- 

 sistance and advice and shared with them his store of knowledge. 



Between Bartram and Wilson a close intimacy immediately 

 sprang up, and the association with the venerable naturalist and 

 the atmosphere which prevaded the botanic garden soon kindled 

 into flame the latent interest in birds which up to that time had 

 been dominated by the spirit of poetry. 



Ornithology was almost as much a hobby with Bartram as 

 botany, and he had published in his Travels a list of the birds of 

 eastern North America, consequently he gave every encourage- 

 ment to the development of this taste in his young friend. 



The meagerness and inaccuracy of the literature of American 

 ornithology, and the obvious need of science for the knowledge 

 that he felt he could supply strongly appealed to Wilson, while 

 the recreation from his confining school duties which the pursuit 

 of this study would afford him, was an additional allurement. 



In 1803 he writes to a friend, "I have had many pursuits since 

 I left Scotland . . . and I am now about to make a collection of 

 all our finest birds." 



The first essential in natural history research in those days was 

 the preparation of drawings of the objects studied, and Wilson 

 being by no means an artist born set about the laborious task of 

 learning to draw. Night after night he worked patiently with 

 brush and pencil in his efforts to produce satisfactory pictures of 

 the birds which he shot. Alexander Lawson, the engraver, gave 

 him instruction and Miss Nancy Bartram, a niece of the naturalist, 

 also helped him. Wilson never attained much artistic ability, 



