538 Progress of Ornithology in the United States. [September, 
GENERAL WORKS. 
Alexander Wilson, a Scotchman by birth, came to America in 
1794, and some ten years later conceived the idea of writing a 
history of the birds of his adopted country. Receiving hearty 
encouragement from his kind friend, Mr. William Bartram, he 
entered seriously upon his great work in 1805, to which he de- 
voted almost his whole time and energy till his untimely death 
in 1813. The first volume appeared in 1808, followed by eight 
others, the last two of which were published after his death, un- 
der the editorship of Mr. George Ord. Of these nine folio vol- 
umes, accompanied by colored plates, Bonaparte wrote in 1825 
as follows: “ We may add, without hesitation, that such a work 
as he [Wilson] ‘has published in a new country is still a deside- 
ratum in any part of Europe.” His earlier figures were some- 
times stiff and awkward, but they were generally of a high grade 
of excellence for that time, and his descriptions were concise and 
exact. His accounts of the habits of many of the species have 
rarely been surpassed in point of truthfulness or felicity of ex- 
pression. Never extended by irrelevant matter, some of them 
are models of descriptive writing, evincing a poet’s love and ap- 
preciation of nature. Although adopting Pennant’s system of 
classification, by far the best then extant, the species were not 
systematically grouped, but taken in the order in which they 
most conveniently came to his hand. Had he lived to complete 
his work, many others would doubtless have been added, and the 
whole rearranged in accordance with his own ideas of their affini- 
ties. 
The work so well begun by Wilson was continued by Bona- 
parte, whose American Ornithology, or the Natural History of 
the Birds inhabiting the United States, not given by Wilson, 
was extended to four volumes, similar in style to those of Wilson. 
The first appeared in 1825, the second and third in 1828, and the 
fourth in 1833. 
Several editions of Wilson’s work were subsequently issued, 
either separately or combined with Bonaparte’s continuation. 
The first American edition was that published by George Ord, 
in 1828-29, in three octavo volumes of text and a folio volume 
of plates. In this work the species are arranged systematically, 
but the editor adhered to the original text, correcting merely 
a few erroneous references and verbal inaccuracies. In 1881, 
Jameson published in Edinburgh an 18mo edition of Wilson 5 
and Bonaparte’s works. The succeeding year this was followed 
