10 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



" It was on the 21st of May, 1857, that my earnest day thoughts and not 

 infrequent night-dreams of thirty years were realized by the sight of a Hum- 

 ming Bird. The period of my visit to America being somewhat early in the 

 season my attempts to discover a living ' Hummer' in the neighborhood of 

 New York during the second week of May were futile, and it was not until I 

 arrived at the more southern city of Philadelphia that my wish was gratified 

 by the sight of a single male in the celebrated Bartram' s Gardens, whither I 

 was conducted by my friend Mr. Wm. L. Baily, from whom I also received 

 many other kind attentions. 



" The almost total absence of Humming Birds around Philadelphia proved 

 to me that I was still too early for them, the lateness of the season of 1857 

 having retarded their movement. I therefore, determined to proceed further 

 south to Washington, where in the gardens of the Capitol, I had the pleasure 

 of meeting with them in great numbers; in lieu of the single individual in 

 Bartram' s Gardens, I was now gratified by the sight of from fifty to sixty on 

 a single tree." 



It has always been represented by different members of the 

 Baily family including his own brothers that William L. Baily 

 was the first to obtain the iridescent effect on colored drawings 

 of Hummingbirds, and also that John Gould made use of the 

 process of which Baily had given him the exact details. The 

 foregoing correspondence shows that Baily had as early as Aug- 

 ust 31, 1854, devised the process for obtaining iridescent effects 

 and had so written under the above date a friendly letter to 

 Gould gratuitously offering his method as an improvement upon 

 Gould's. Gould acknowledges in his reply that he has up to 

 that time not thought of employing gelatine in the way Baily 

 mentioned, and asks Baily to carry into effect his kind offer to 

 send him one or two plates for inspection. He also continues, 

 * ' Any hints therefore as to the mode of application will be ac- 

 ceptable". It is also a fact that up to that time no goldleaf 

 iridescent coloring had been used on Gould's plates of Hum- 

 mingbirds of which six parts had already been published. I 

 have been unable to find in the letters to William Baily any de- 

 scription of Gould's process or any evidence that Baily had 

 knowledge of or had asked for Gould's method. Mr. Gould 

 also acknowledges that Baily had given him the first idea of this 

 remarkable improvement which Baily had already perfected, 

 but when the preface of his book was written sometime later 



