122 AI^EXANDE^R WII.SON : POET-NATURAUST 



nephew, and his father and step-mother were 

 never forgotten throughout his whole hfe, and in 

 later years he was equally devoted to Charles Orr 

 and William Bartram. Once admiring President 

 Jefferson, he never faltered in his devotion to him, 

 even when he failed to get the appointment on 

 Pike's Expedition, for which he so much longed 

 for the sake of his study of the birds of that un- 

 known region. 



Wilson's character was marked by a natural 

 gentleness and naive tenderness. Since his 

 mother died when he was a child, and he never 

 knew the affection of a wife, while his sister was 

 several years his senior, — nor was he associated 

 with her for any long while, — he was thus without 

 those more subtle sympathies which are only de- 

 veloped by the affections of a woman made dear 

 by life's closer ties. Yet to Wilson the love of 

 animals appealed with a force that few men know, 

 and to bird and beast alike throughout life his 

 affection went out with all the tenderness of his 

 nature. 



A little paroquet which he carried with him 

 through one of his southern trips became to him 

 a real companion, and he speaks of his regret at 

 parting from it with evident, though restrained, 

 feeling. His account of the freeing of a wee 

 mouse, which he was sketching, speaks volumes 

 for the tenderness of the man. "One of my 

 boys," he wrote Bartram, "caught a mouse in 

 school, a few days ago, and directly marched up 

 to me with his prisoner, I set about drawing it 

 that same evening, and all the while the pantings 



