72 AI.EXANDE:R WII.SON : po^-naturaust 



ful listlessness." In these generalizations, hur- 

 riedly expressed in his letters when he was tired 

 out and out of patience with the people that he 

 had canvassed all day, he was often at fault, but 

 in his special remarks and his descriptions of the 

 things that he actually saw he was almost always 

 accurate. 



From Savannah Wilson had expected to re- 

 turn home by water, but as a matter of fact we 

 learn from a letter written to his father that he 

 did not do so, for he wrote that he had "visited 

 every town within one hundred and fifty miles of 

 the Atlantic Coast, from the River St. Lawrence 

 to St. Augustine in Florida," yet he is still doubt- 

 ful whether he can cover the cost of the publica- 

 tion, or must suffer the sacrifice "of the little 

 all" that he has. With this letter he sent to his 

 father that epoch-making first volume of his "Or- 

 nithology," the book which stands almost as the 

 very first — for the little work which had been 

 done by Thomas Jefferson and William Bartram 

 was inconsiderable — example of ornithological lit- 

 erature in America, and which announced the 

 birth of a new study in the United States. 



A decade and a half had passed away now since 

 Wilson came to America, and through these years 

 there had been going on a slow but very real mod- 

 ification in the man. The Wilson who had burned 

 his own verses by compulsion at the Cross of 

 Paisley was a Scotchman through and through; 

 even his liberality of view and love of freedom 

 were a part of the Scotch character, and his by in- 

 heritance. Years later when after his Milestown 



