Ixviii LIFE OF WILSON. 
cold melancholy reserve of the females, of the best families, in South Carolina 
and Georgia. Old and young, single and married, all have that dull frigid in- 
sipidity, and reserve, which is attributed to solitary old maids. Even in their 
own houses they scarce utter anything to a stranger but yes or no, and one is 
perpetually puzzled to know whether it proceeds from awkwardness or dislike. 
Those who have been at some of their balls say that the ladies hardly ever 
speak or smile, but dance with as much gravity as if they were performing 
some ceremony of devotion. On the contrary, the negro wenches are all 
sprightliness and gayety ; and if report be not a defamer — (Jiere there is a 
hiatus in the manuscript') which render the men callous to all the finer sensa- 
tions of love, and female excellence. 
" I will not detain you by a recital of my journey from Charleston to Savan- 
nah. In crossing the Savannah river, at a place called the Two Sisters' Ferry, 
my horse threw himself into the torrent, and had I not, at the risk of my own 
life, rescued him, would have been drowned." 
Of the first volume of the Ornithology, only two hundred copies had been 
printed. But it was now thought expedient to strike off a new edition of three 
hundred more; as the increasing approbation of the public warranted the 
expectation of corresponding support. 
To Mk. Wm. Bartram. 
"Philadelphia, August 4th, 1809. 
" The second volume of ' American Ornithology' being now nearly ready to 
go to press, and the plates in considerable forwardness, you will permit me to 
trespass on your time, for a few moments, by inquiring if you have anything 
interesting to add to the history of the following birds, the figures of which 
will be found in this volume. 
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 
"I have myself already said everything of the foregoing that my own ob- 
servations suggested, or that I have been enabled to collect from those on 
whom I could rely. As it has fallen to my lot to be the biographer of the 
feathered tribes of the United States, I am solicitous to do full justice to every 
species; and I would not conceal one good quality that any one of them pos- 
sesses. I have paid particular attention to the mocking-bird, humming-bird, 
king-bird and cat-bird ; all the principal traits in their character I have deli- 
neated at full. If you have anything to add on either of them, I wish you 
would communicate it in the form of a letter, addressed particularly to me. 
Your favorable opinion of my work (if such you have) would, if publicly 
known, be of infinite service to me, and procure me many friends.* 
* This instance of Wilson's diffidence of his own talents and acquirements is too re- 
marknble to be passed over without a note. He seemed to fear lest the intrinsic merit of 
his work should not be sufficient, of itself, to get it into notice ; and therefore he solicited 
the favorable opinion of one, to whose judgment in these matters, he felt assured, the 
public paid a deference. Contrasted with this modest deportment, how contemptible is the 
vanity, and self-conceit, of those writers, who, whether they compose a superlicial essay, 
