1893.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 49 



as crazy, his wife and fomily alone gave liim enconragement. 

 His wife, he writes, "determined that my genius should prevail, 

 and that my final success as an ornithoiogist should be tri- 

 umphant." Always his wife, — wherever throughout his career, 

 we learn of trouble, disappointments, vexation of all kinds, and 

 monetary difficulties innumerable overtaking him, it is always 

 his wife who encourages the despairing heart, strengthens the 

 weakening faith and points him onward to the distant goal, 

 which her woman's trust in his abilities shall surely help him to 

 obtain. 



His trip with Stein was a failure financially, and returning to 

 Natchez he went to Philadeli)hia. There he met the artist 

 Sully, who gave him valuable lessons in oil painting, and he 

 worked hard to complete his drawings of birds. His friends 

 and the engravers of Wilson's plates all recommended him to 

 visit Europe, and he decided to follow their advice, and left 

 Philadelphia to return to Bayou Sara. In New York he was 

 introduced by Pr. DeKay to the members of the Lyceum of 

 Natural HistoiT, now the Academy of Sciences, which has been 

 instrumental in raising the monument this da}^ unveiled, and 

 under whose auspices we meet this evening. His drawings 

 wei'e exhibited to the members, " among whom," he says, " I 

 felt awkward and uncomfortable. After living among such 

 people I feel clouded and depressed ; remember I have done 

 nothing, and fear I may die unknown. I feel I am strange to 

 all but the birds of America. In a few days I shall be in the 

 woods and quite forgotten." 



On arriving at Bayou Sara he began to consider what he 

 could do to hasten the publication of his drawings. His wife 

 was receiving a large Income for those days, nearly S3, 000, 

 which she offered to give him, and he resolved on an effort to 

 increase the amount. From Woodville came a special invita- 

 tion to teach dancing, and a class of sixty pupils was formed. 

 " The dancing speculation,'" he says, " fetched $2,000, and with this 

 capital and my wife's savings I was now able to foresee a suc- 

 cessful issue to my great ornithological work." 



Ou 26th April, 1826, he sailed from New Orleans for Liver- 

 pool in the ship Delos, provided with numerous letters of intro- 

 duction, and reached his destination on the 20th Jul}', In 

 Edinburgh he met Mr. Lizars, the engraver of Selby's great 

 work on British Bii'ds, who offered to bring out the first number 

 of the Birds of America, and on the 28th November he was pre- 

 sented with a proof of the first plate. 



He was well received here, and on December 10th writes: 



