96 WILLIAM BARTRAM 



garfish, inimical trout, and all the varieties of gilded painted bream, 

 the barbed catfish, dreaded sting-ray, skate and flounder, spotted bass, 

 sheeps head and ominous drum; all in their separate bands and com- 

 munities, with free and unsuspicious intercourse performing their 

 evolutions . . . (pp. 166-167). 



He notes with especial care individual species of fish. " The 

 goldfish is about the size of the anchovy ... of a neat slender 

 form ; the head is covered with a salade of an ultramarine blue, 

 the back of a redish brown, the sides and belly of a flame, or 

 of the colour of a fine red lead . . ." (p. 44). The " red-belly 

 ... is as large as a man's hand, nearly oval and thin, being 

 compressed on each side; the tail is beautifully formed; the top 

 of the head and back of an olive-green, besprinkled with russet 

 specks; the sides of a sea grean, inclining to azure, insensibly 

 blended with the olive above, and beneath lightens to a silvery 

 white, or pearl colour, elegantly powdered with specks of the 

 finest green, russet, and gold " (p. 12) . An even more colorful 

 description is that of Bartram's favorite fish, the yellow bream, 

 or sunfish. " What a most beautiful creature," he exclaims, 



is this fish . . . gliding to and fro, and figuring in the still clear waters, 

 with his orient attendants and associates . . . the whole fish is of a 

 pale gold or burnished brass colour, darker on the back and upper 

 sides; the scales are . . . variably powdered with red, russet, silver, 

 blue and green specks, so laid on the scales as to appear like real dust 

 or opaque bodies, each apparent particle being so projected by light 

 and shade, and the various attitudes of the fish, as to deceive the 

 sight . . . the fins are of an Orange colour ; and . . . the ultimate angle 

 of the branchiostega terminate (sic) by a little spatula, the extreme end 

 of which represents a crescent of the finest ultramarine blue, encircled 

 with silver, and velvet black, like the eye in the feathers of a peacock's 

 train (pp. 153-154). 



The landscape of Bartram is composed not only of land and 

 water, and the plants and animals that these contain, but also 

 of the air and its animals. As has already been indicated else- 

 where in this study, Bartram was an ornithologist of import- 

 ance and his list of American birds, in Part II, Chapter X, of 

 the Travels, is generally recognized as the " most complete and 

 correct " before the publication of the American Ornithology 

 by his pupil and friend, Alexander Wilson. In fact, he is con- 



