74 



MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



place between 1822 and 1832. The 'Land Birds' (Vol. I) was published by 

 Hilliard and Brown of Cambridge in 1832, and the 'Water Birds' (Vol. II) 

 by Hilliard, Gray, and Company of Boston in 1834. A second edition of the 

 Land Birds, re.paged and containing a good deal of additional matter, was issued 

 by the latter firm in 1840. In 1891 Little, Brown, and Company of Boston 

 brought out a ' Popular Handbook of the Ornithology of the United States and 

 Canada, Based on Nuttall's Manual.' This book was severely handled by the 

 critics, and with good reason, for its editor, Mr. Montague Chamberlain, took 

 many unwise liberties with Nuttall's text, changing or omitting much of the 

 original matter, and re-writing all the descriptions of the birds as well as those 

 of their nests and eggs. A second and somewhat improved edition of the 

 Nuttall-Chamberlain Manual appeared in 1896, and a third edition, reprinted 

 from the electrotyped plates of the second edition, was issued in 1903. 



Thomas Nuttall was born in Settle, Yorkshire, England, in 1786. He is 

 believed to have been of humble parentage and to have received no regular educa- 

 tion, although he is said to have been "a well-informed young man," ^ possessing 

 some knowledge of natural history, as well as of Latin and Greek, when, after 

 serving as an apprentice to a printer in England, he came to America in 1 808. 

 Almost immediately after landing at Philadelphia he formed the acquaintance of 

 Professor Benjamin S. Barton, through whom he became interested in botany. 

 During the spring of this year he collected plants assiduously, bringing them to 

 Barton, with whose assistance they were identified and preserved. Some of the 

 field excursions made by him about this time extended as far as the coasts of 

 Virginia and North Carolina. In the autumn of 1809 he accompanied the 

 Scotch naturalist, John Bradbury, on an expedition up the Missouri River, 

 whence he returned early in 181 1 with a considerable collection of seeds, plants 

 and minerals. During the following eight years he spent his winters at Phila- 

 delphia, studying the collections made during summer trips to various parts of 

 the region lying east of the Mississippi, between the Great Lakes and Florida. 

 These field and closet investigations furnished the material for his ' Genera of 

 North American Plants ' a work which appeared in 1 8 1 8 and which, in the opin- 

 ion of Professor John Torrey, " contributed more than any other [work] to 

 advance the accurate knowledge of the plants of this country." ^ 



During his journey into the interior of Arkansas, of which he published an 

 account^ in 182 1, Nuttall was absent from Philadelphia about sixteen months 



' E. Durand, Biographical Notice of the late Thomas Nuttall, Proceedings of the American 

 Philosophical Society, VII, i860, 297. 



^ J. Torrey, Flora of the Northern and Middle Sections of the United States, 1824, v. 

 'T. Nuttall, Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory, during the year 1819, 1821. 



