OF IMY LITERARY LIFE. 
To Mr. Zimmerman 1 was greatly indebted for feveral impor- 
tant improvements, from his able performance the Zoologia Geo- 
grapbica, as well as great information from his frequent letters. It 
is unbecoming in me to exprefs the partiality which that emi- 
nant writer, and other of my foreign friends, have fhewn towards 
me: if the reader has the curiofity to learn their opinion of me, 
he may confult Mr. ZimmERMAaN’s Zoologia Geographica, p. 286. 
The rev. Mr. Cox, in vol. II. p. 440, 441, of his travels, 
quarto edition, hath recorded the compliment paid to me by 
Linnaeus; and Patras, in p. 376 of his Nova Species Qua- 
drupedum, hath dealt out his praife with much too liberal 
a hand. 
The liberties which the country gentlemen, in the charaéter 
of deputy-lieutenants, and militia-officers, now and then took 
with their fellow fubjects, urged me ftrongly this es to pub-— 
lith Free Thoughts on the Militia Laws. 
On Feb. the 3d, 1781, I was elected honorary member of 
the Society of Antiquaries at Edinburgh. 
in the Philcfophical Tranfaétions of 1781 was publifhed my 
hiftory, and natural hiftory, of the Turky; it had been doubted 
whether this was not a bird of the old world; but I flatter my- 
felf that I have made it apparent that it is peculiar to America, 
and was unknown before the difcovery of that continent. My 
refpected friend, Mr. Barrington, had taken the other fide of 
the queftion; but this was not publifhed by me polemically, or 
in any-wife inimical to fo excellent a character. 
To this paper is annexed an engraving of a fingular Lufus, 
the toe and claw of fome rapacious bird growing on the thigh 
of a Turky, bred in my poultry court. 
E 2 At 
27 
Free THoucutTs 
ON THE MiLiT1A4 
Laws. 
Or THE TuRKY, 
