18 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



and judging for myself, would doubtless have 

 pronounced me callous to every sense of duty, 

 and regardless of every interest. I undertook 

 long and tedious journeys, ransacked the woods, , 

 the lakes, the prairies, and the shores of the 

 Atlantic. Years were spent away from my 

 family. Yet, reader, will you believe it, I had 

 no other object in view than simply to enjoy 

 the sight of Nature. Never for a moment did 

 I conceive the hope of becoming in any degree 

 useful to my kind, until I accidentally formed ; 

 acquaintance with the Prince of Musignano* ' 

 at Philadelphia, to which place I went, with the 

 view of proceeding eastward along the coast. 



" I reached Philadelphia on the 5th April, . 

 1824, just as the sun was sinking beneath the 

 horizon. Excepting the good Dr Mease, who had 

 visited me in my younger days, I had scarcely 

 a friend in the city; for I was then unacquainted 

 with Harlan, Wetherell, Macmurrie, Lesueur, 

 or Sully. I called on him, and shewed him 

 some of my drawings. He presented me tOi 

 the celebrated Charles Lucian Bonaparte, who, 

 in his turn introduced me to the Natural History 

 Society of Philadelphia. But the patronage! 



* Charles Lucian Bonaparte, wlio has published a splendid 

 continuation of the American Ornithology of Alexandei| 

 Wilson, containing figures and descriptions of all the birds 

 discovered since liis time. 



