May, 1883.] 



AND OOLOCxIST. 



39 



Alexander Wilson's Works. 



When Wilson wrote his book it was 

 purely from nature. He went into the 

 woods and wilds for subjects and matter 

 for his brush and pencil. If he quoted 

 anything it was from 2:)ersons that had 

 good oj^portunities for observation and in 

 whom he could rely. He makes no quota- 

 tions from the works of others excej^t to 

 expose their errors and correct their mis- 

 takes. He was Par excellence the Ameri- 

 can Ornithologist, the father of ornithology 

 in this country. His whole mind and en- 

 ergies were bent on the one object of his 

 life. He does not appear to have sought 

 society, he does not appear to have been 

 fascinating, and yet he made a few chosen 

 friends and held them through life. They 

 were slaves to his every desire. His friend, 

 William Bartram, responded to his every 

 wish. It was the same with his " Brither 

 Scott," Alexander Lawson, without a doubt 

 one of the best of engravers on copper of 

 his time or any time since. Lawson never 

 crossed him but once and that was when 

 he criticised some of his Poems in the edi- 

 tion of 1790, when Wilson snatched the 

 volume and threw it into the fire saying 

 that " if a friend found so much fault it 

 could not be of much account." Lawson 

 never crossed him in his ornithological de- 

 sires and we have it in his own words that 

 he worked on some of the finest plates at 

 prices that did not bring him over fifty 

 cents per day. Only think of it, one of the 

 finest copj^er plate engravers working for 

 from three to five cents per hoiir. If that 

 is not devotion to a friend and his work 

 we do not know what is. There has been 

 written some six or seven lifes of Wilson, 

 but not one that does him justice, not one 

 that shows a proper research. Even his 

 friend Ord did not grasp the situation, and 

 only tells part of the 8tor3\ Rev. Alexan- 

 der Grossart is the last one to write his 

 life. He gathers a great many materials 

 crudely together, bxit it is plain that his 



bigotry runs away with his better judge- 

 ment, and the life of Alexander Wilson as 

 well as that of Audubon is yet to be writ- 

 ten. 



ALEXANDER WILSON. 



Thee Wilson, Nuture'i< sel' shall mourn 



By wood and wild, 

 Where, haply, pity strays forlorn, 



Frae man exil'd. 

 Mourn ye wee songsters o' the wood ; 

 Ye groups that crop the heather bud ; 

 Ye Curlews calling thro' a clud ; 



Ye whistling Plover ; 

 And mourn, ye whirring patrich brood ; 



He's gane forever ! 

 Mourn clam'rlng craiks at close o' day, 

 'Mang fields o' flow'ering clover gay ; 

 And, when ye wing your annual way 



Frae our cauld shore. 

 Tell thae far warls, wha lies in clay. 



Wham we deplore. 



AiTTHOR I'nknown. 



The Clapper Rail, 



Or Mud Hen, Marsh or Meadow Hen, 

 {Ralliis longirostris crepitans.) This bird, 

 which answers equally well to any of the 

 above names, is found in certain parts of 

 the great salt meadows along the coasts of 

 New Jersey and Long Island in large 

 numbers. Being a very shy bird, living 

 along the creeks of the salt meadows 

 where few men go early in the year, its 

 habits, time of coming and going, &c., 

 are not well known. It is supposed they 

 travel at night. The time of arrival on 

 Long Island is dependent on the season, 

 but from the 1st to the 15th of May is the 

 time they are first seen. Their food con- 

 sists of worms, aquatic insects, &c. They 

 form a group apart from the other Rails 

 during the breeding season and are not 

 very sociable, but, on the contrary, exceed- 

 ingly shy. Instinct does much for these 

 as well as other birds, and knowing how 

 the wonderful powers of man are directed 

 toward their destruction, or to obtaining 

 their eggs, they are obliged to carefully 

 hide their nests under some tuft of grass, 

 left standing from the previous year, or 

 among the reeds, where they are entirely 

 hidden from the Hawks and Owls and their 

 worst enemy, man. They make but little 



