WILSON, THE ORNITHOLOGIST. 



123 



In those terrible years when 

 man waged against man the most 

 destructive war that had ever 

 been known, there lived in Scot- 

 land a man of peace. A poor 

 Paisley weaver,* in his damp 

 dull lodging, he dreamed of 

 nature, of the infinite liberty of 

 the woods, and, above all, of 

 the winged life. A cripple, and 

 condemned to inactivity, his very 

 bondage inspired him with an 

 ecstatic love of light and flight. 

 If he did not take to himself 

 wings, it was because that sublime 



gift is, upon earth, only the dream and hope of another world. 



* Alexander Wilson, the eminent ornithologist, was born al Paisley in 1766. He was 

 bred a weaver, but emigrating to the United States in 1794, found means to pursue the 

 studies for which he had a natural bias, and in which he earned an enduring reputation. 

 The first volume of his " American Ornithology " was published in 1808. He died of 

 dysentery, in August 1813. Translator. 



