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such as Alexander Wilson, Audubon, Chas. Bonaparte, 

 one is inclined to regret that the sedentary philosopher 

 should have spent so much time in doors, describing his 

 favorites, instead of ransacking the woods, the fields, 

 the sea-shore, to see for himself, like Audubon and 

 Wilson and other more recent field-naturalists, how 

 God's creatures lived, loved, sang and died. 



The natural sciences have had in the United States 

 as well as in Canada, rude beginnings. Catesby (1731), 

 Edwards ; Forster (1771), Pennant (1787), Latham, 

 Peale, Bartram (1791), might be considered the 

 pioneers of this branch of study in the American 

 Union. Vieillot's French illustrated work, published 

 in France in 1807, on the birds of San Domingo and 

 North America, drew the eyes of European savants 

 towards the American fauna. Until 1827, Wilson's 

 treatise on the birds of Pennsylvania and New Jersey 

 was the sole authority. That year Audubon com- 

 menced his lifelike drawings of American birds, which, 

 with their biography, he completed twelve years later, 

 in 1839. An octavo and more complete edition of the 

 work was issued between 1840 and 1844. 



In 1832, Nuttall published that portion of his 

 manual descriptive of the land birds of the United 

 States and Canada. The part relating to winter birds 

 appeared in 1834. In 1840, a second edition was put 

 forth. In 1858, appeared the celebrated ninth volume 

 of " Pacific Eailroad Eeports," a robust quarto of 1,000 

 pages, which revolutionized American ornithology. 

 Several thousand specimens, furnished by the different 

 surveying parties, accompanied by their reports and 

 notes, had been sent to the Smithsonian Institution and 

 placed in the hands of its assistant-secretary, Spencer 

 K. Baird, who, with the able assistance of John Cassin 

 and George N. Lawrence, revised the whole subject, 

 reconstructing classes, orders and families, christening 

 new species, setting forth in this splendid volume the 

 entire avi-fauna of America, north of Mexico, and 

 30 



