LIFE OP WILSON. cliii 



" The fifth volume of this extensive work is submitted to the 

 public with all due deference and respect; and the author hav- 

 ing now, as he conjectures, reached the middle stage of his 

 journey, or in traveller's phrase, the ' half- way house,' may be 

 permitted to indulge himself with a slight retrospect of the 

 ground he has already traversed, and a glimpse of that which 

 still lies before him. 



" The whole of our Land Birds (those of the sixth volume 

 included, which are nearly ready for the press) have now been 

 figured and described, probably a very few excepted, which, it 

 is, hoped will also shortly be obtained. These have been gleaned 

 up from an extensive territory of woods and fields, unfrequen- 

 ted forests, solitary ranges of mountains, swamps and morasses, 

 by successive journies and excursions of more than ten thousand 

 miles. With all the industry which a single individual could 

 possibly exert, several species have doubtless escaped him. 

 These, future expeditions may enable him to procure; or the 

 kindness of his distant literary friends obligingly supply him 

 with. 



" In endeavouring to collect materials for describing truly 

 and fully our feathered tribes, he has frequently had recourse 

 to the works of those European naturalists who have written 

 on the subject; he has examined their pages with an eager and 

 inquisitive eye; but his researches in that quarter have been but 

 too frequently repaid with disappointment, and often with dis- 

 gust. On the subject of the manners and migrations of our 

 birds, which in fact constitute almost the only instructive and 

 interesting parts of their history, all is a barren and a dreary 

 waste. A few vague and formal particulars of their size, speci- 

 fic marks, &c. accompanied sometimes with figured represen- 

 tations that would seem rather intended to caricature than to il- 

 lustrate their originals, is all that the greater part of them can 

 boast of. Nor are these the most exceptionable parts of their 

 performances; the novelty of fable, and the wildness of fanci- 

 ful theory, are frequently substituted for realities; and conjec- 

 tures instead of facts called up for their support. Prejudice, 



VOL. i u 



