I PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



the Delaware, and later brought to a pitch of enthusiasm through 

 his friendship with the native-born William Bartram. Bona- 

 parte, with an undoubted ornithological bent, completed Wil- 

 son's work and advanced the scientific side of the study. The 

 artist-naturalist Aududon was, like Bonaparte, a Frenchman, 

 and with all the ear-marks of that gifted race. For the truly 

 scientific portion of his great work, however, he was largely in- 

 debted to another Scot, William Macgillivray. So it is toward 

 Scotland and France that we later devotees of the brilliant sci- 

 ence of American ornithology may well turn our eyes. If these 

 names are stars of the first magnitude, there are lesser lights, 

 that yet are worthy of our attention, and the subject of this 

 short sketch was, like Wilson and Macgillivray, a Scotchman. 



William P. Turnbull was born at Fala, ' ' a village lying on 

 the southeast verge of Mid Lothian," on the twentieth da}"- of 

 June, 1830. So says his biographer, Mr. Robert Gray, a Scotch 

 ornithologist, who published a sketch of Turnbull in the "Pro- 

 ceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalist's Club" (Vol. VIII, 

 1876-1878, pp. 77-78), about five years after his death. In 

 this sketch, Mr. Gray speaks of Turnbull' s boyhood, spent at 

 his father's residence in the village of Gladsmuir, near the wood 

 of that name in East Lothian, where his love for birds was 

 early developed. " Always engaged in catching birds and look- 

 ing for their nests, ' ' his biographer quotes, and I think we can 

 fancy the lad, like one of us, with all that delightful enthusiasm, 

 that after all seems the only thing worth while. His youthful 

 observations, carried on mainly between the years 1845 and 

 1850, bore fruit in a "simple catalogue," published after he 

 came to America, under the title, " Birds of East Lothian and 

 a portion of the Surrounding Counties," issued from the Caxton 

 press of C. Sherman, Son & Co., Philadelphia, (1863). Gray 

 alludes in this biography to a frequent correspondence with 

 Turnbull in America, and to the fact that he undertook, at 

 Turnbull' s suggestion, the preparation of a new edition, which 

 ' ' contains information on the rarer birds collected since the 

 first edition was printed." It was illustrated by William Sin- 

 clair, and printed for private circulation, and bears the follow- 

 ing title : 



