126 NATURAL HISTORY. 



declined to do so, upon prudential grounds, and Wilson 

 determined to prosecute his plan unaided. At the worst, 

 as he said himself, he should, in so doing, at least leave 

 ' a small beacon,' to point out where he perished. 



Wilson now applied to Jefferson, then president of 

 the United States, for some post in connection with a 

 contemplated expedition to explore the region drained 

 by the Mississippi ; but, for some unexplained reason, 

 his application received no notice. However, fortune 

 now smiled upon him, and he was rendered to some 

 extent independent by being appointed assistant-editor on 

 * Rees's Cyclopaedia,' a new edition of which was about to 

 be brought out by Mr Samuel F. Bradford, a bookseller of 

 Philadelphia. He did not delay long in submitting to 

 Mr Bradford his plan for preparing an ornithology of 

 the United States; and Mr Bradford not only gave the 

 plan his approval, but agreed to become publisher, and 

 to find the necessary funds. 



Wilson was now able to devote himself to his great 

 enterprise, whenever his editorial duties would allow 

 him to do so ; and he spent the next two years hard 

 at work on his contemplated treatise. 'At length,' to 

 use the words of his biographer and friend, Mr George 

 Ord, 'in the month of September 1808, the first volume of 

 the ' American Ornithology ' made its appearance. From 

 the date of the arrangement with the publisher, 

 a prospectus had been issued, wherein the nature 

 and intended execution of the work were specified. But 

 yet no one appeared to entertain an adequate idea of 

 the treat which was about to be afforded to the lovers 

 of the fine arts and of elegant literature ; and when the 



