

ALABAMA. 115 



here were the very scenes described in his delightful 

 volumes ; and the young man made conscientious pilgrim- 

 ages to the meadows below the city, to the marshy flats 

 of the Schuylkill, to the rushy and half-submerged islets of 

 the Delaware, to Thompson's Point, the former residence 

 of the night-heron or qua-bird, and to the notorious Pea 

 Patch, resort of crows in multitudes. He found an old 

 man who had personally known the ornithologist, although 

 Wilson had at that time been dead twenty-three years ; 

 but although Wilson had been a constant visitor at 

 his house, the old man could relate little about him that 

 was characteristic. One thing he said was sufficiently 

 memorable. " Wilson and I," he said, " were always 

 disputing about the sparrows. He would have it that the 

 sparrows here were different from those in the old country. 

 I knew well enough they were just the same, but I could 

 not persuade him of it." It is scarcely necessary to say 

 that the American sparrow is wholly distinct from the 

 English. 



The delay in the hospitable city of Philadelphia was, 

 however, not altogether the result of his admiration for the 

 museums or pleasure in the associations of the past. It 

 was due to the difficulty he found in obtaining transit to 

 the South. At length he engaged a passage in the White 

 Oak, a small schooner bound to the port of Mobile. He 

 sailed on April 18, and the voyage, a very picturesque and 

 interesting one, occupied nearly a month. They were two 

 days getting down to the Delaware Bay, for they were 

 constantly running aground on the spits and banks which 

 lay under the mirror-like surface of the river. At last, 

 after loitering in the mean fishing village of Delaware City, 

 they were off down to the ocean. It was exceedingly 

 cold, although they were in the latitude of Lisbon, and 

 ice a quarter of an inch thick formed on deck. At first, 



