Alexander Wilson. 



225 



titudes. Some one has spoken of the nut- 

 hatches as the harlequins among birds, 

 and the figure is a happy one, but we are 

 incHned to think it almost as applicable to 

 the Titmice. They are much given to 

 swinging head downward on a limb, and 

 will twist themselves around a twig, as 

 readily as an expert gymnast over a hori- 

 zontal bar. 



In winter these birds roost in old wood- 

 pecker holes or in crevices in the trees. 



which afford them some protection from 

 the weather. 



The Tufted Titmouse is about 6}^ inches 

 long and measures 9 inches across the ex- 

 tended wings. The general color of the 

 upper parts is dark bluish-ash. The fore- 

 head is black, sometimes tinged with 

 reddish. The under parts are grayish- 

 white and the sides pale reddish-brown, 

 the iris is brown, the bill black, and the 

 feet lead color. 



ALEXANDER WILSON, 



WE left Wilson at the outset of his 

 description of his voyage down 

 the Ohio, and will take up the narrative in 

 his own words, still preserved to us in his 

 letter to Mr. Alexander Lawson: 



"I now stripped," he says, "with alacrity 

 to my new avocation. The current went 

 about two and a half miles an hour, and I 

 added about three and a half miles more 

 to the boat's way with my oars. In the 

 course of the day I passed a number of 

 arks, or, as they are usually called, Kentucky 

 boats, loaded with what, it must be acknowl- 

 edged, are the most valuable commodities 

 of a country, viz., men, women and chil- 

 dren, horses and ploughs, flour, millstones, 

 etc. Several of these floating caravans 

 were laden with store goods for the supply 

 of the settlements through which they 

 passed, having a counter erected, shawls, 

 muslins, etc., displayed, and everything 

 ready for transacting business. On ap- 

 proaching a settlement they blow a horn 

 or tin trumpet which announces to the in- 

 habitants their arrival. I boarded many 

 of these arks, and felt much interested at 

 the sight of so many human beings migrat- 

 ing like birds of passage to the luxuriant 

 regions of the South and West. The arks 

 are built in the form of a parallelogram, 



being from twelve to fourteen feet wide, 

 and from forty to seventy feet long, covered 

 above, rowed only occasionally by two oars 

 before, and steered by a long and powerful 

 one fixed above. * * * 



" I rowed twenty odd miles the first 

 spell, and found I should be able to stand 

 it perfectly well About an hour after 

 night I put up at a miserable cabin, fifty- 

 two miles from Pittsburgh, where I slept on 

 what I supposed to be cornstalks or some- 

 thing worse; so preferring the smooth 

 bosom of the Ohio to this brush heap,. I 

 got up long before day, and, being under 

 no apprehension of losing my way, I again 

 pushed out into the stream. The land- 

 scape on each side lay in one mass of 

 shade; but the grandeur of the projectii^g 

 headlands and vanishing points, or lines 

 was charmingly reflected in the .smooth 

 glassy surface below. I could only dis- 

 cover when I was passing a clearing by the 

 crowing of cocks, and now and then in 

 more solitary places, the big horned owl 

 made a most hideous hollowing that echoed 

 among the mountains. In this lonesome 

 manner, with full leisure for observation 

 and reflection, exposed to hardships all 

 day and hard berths all night, to storms 

 of rain, hail and snow, for it froze severely 



