lil LIFE OF WILSON. 



you every comfort that the state of society you are in can af- 

 ford. With the great volume of Nature before you, you can 

 never, while in health, be without amusement. Keep a diary 

 of every thing you meet with that is curious. Look out, now 

 and then, for natural curiosities as you traverse your farm; and 

 remember me as you wander through your woody solitudes." 



FROM MR. JEFFERSON. 



Monticello, *ftpril 7, 1805, 

 " Sir, 



"I received here yesterday your favour of March 18, with 

 the elegant drawings of the new birds you found on your tour 

 to Niagara, for which I pray you to accept my thanks. The 

 Jay is quite unknown to me. From my observations while in 

 Europe, on the birds and quadrupeds of that quarter, I am of 

 opinion there is not in our continent a single bird or quadruped 

 which is not sufficiently unlike all the members of its family 

 there to be considered as specifically different; on this general 

 observation I conclude with confidence that your Jay is not a 

 European bird. 



"The first bird on the same sheet I judge to be a Muscicapa 

 from its bill, as well as from the following circumstance. Two 

 or three days before my arrival here a neighbour killed a bird, 

 unknown to him, and never before seen here, as far as he could 

 learn; it was brought to me soon after I arrived; but in the dusk 

 of the evening, and so putrid that it could not be approached 

 but with disgust. But I retain a sufficiently exact idea of its 

 form and colours to be satisfied it is the same with yours. The 

 only difference I find in yours is that the white on the back is 

 not so pure, and that the one I saw had a little of a crest. Your 

 figure, compared with the white bellied Gobe-mouche, 8 Buff. 

 342. PI. enlum. 566, shows a near relation. Buffon's is dark 

 on the back. 



" As you are curious in birds, there is one well worthy your 

 attention, to be found, or rather heard, in every part of Ame- 

 rica, and yet scarcely ever to be seen ; it is in all the forests, 



