LIFE OF WILSON. 
ciii 
" In endeavoring to collect materials for describing truly and fully our 
feathered tribes, he has frequently had recourse to the works of those European 
naturalists who have written on the subject; he has examined their pages 
with an eager and inquisitive eye; but his researches in that quarter have 
been but too fre(juently repaid with disappointment, and often with disgust. 
On the subject of the mauncrs and 771 1'g rat ions of our birds, which in fact con- 
stitute almost the only instructive and interesting parts of their history, all is 
a barren and a dreary waste. A few vague and formal particulars of their 
size, specific marks, &c., accompanied sometimes with figured representations 
that would seem rather intended to caricature than to illustrate their originals, 
is all that the greater part of them can boast of Nor are these the most 
exceptionable parts of their performances; the novelty of fable, and the wild- 
ness of fanciful theory, are frequently substituted for realities; and conjectures 
instead of facts called up for their support. Prejudice, as usual, has in 
numerous instances united with its parent, ignorance, to depreciate and treat 
with contempt what neither of them understood; and the whole interesting 
assemblage of the feathered tribes of this vast continent, which in richness of 
plumage, and in strength, sweetness and variety of song, will be found to exceed 
those of any other quarter of the globe, are little known save in the stuffed 
cabinets of the curious, and among the abstruse pages and technical catalogues 
of dry systematic writers. 
" From these barren and musty records, the author of the present work has 
a thousand times turned with a delight bordering on adoration, to the magni- 
ficent repository of the woods and fields — the Grand Aviary of Nature. In 
this divine school he has studied from no vulgar co^jy ; but from the works of 
the Great Master op Creation himself ; and has read with rapture the 
lessons of his wisdom, his goodness and his love, in the conformation, the habi- 
tudes, melody and migrations of this beautiful portion of the work of his hands. 
To communicate as correct ideas of these as his feeble powers were capable of, 
and thus, from objects, that, in our rural walks, almost everywhere present 
themselves, to deduce not only amusement and instruction, but the highest 
incitements to virtue and piety, have been the author's most anxious and 
ardent wish. On many of his subjects, indeed, it has not been in his power to 
say much. The recent discovery of some, and the solitary and secluded habits 
of others, have opposed great obstacles to his endeavors in this respect. But 
a time is approaching when these obstacles will no longer exist. When the 
population of this immense western Republic will have diffused itself over 
every acre of ground fit for the comfortable habitation of man — when farms, 
villages, towns and glittering cities, thick as the stars in a winter's evening, 
overspread the face of our beloved country, and every hill, valley and stream 
has its favorite name, its native flocks and rural inhabitants ; then, not a 
warbler shall flit through our thickets, but its name, its notes and habits will 
be familiar to all ; repeated in their sayings, and celebrated in their village 
songs. At that happy period, should any vestige or memory of the present 
publication exist, be it known to our more enlightened posterity, as some apology 
for the deficiencies of its author, that in the period in which he wrote, three- 
fourths of our feathered tribes were altogether unknown even to the proprietors 
