xviii 
mSTOBICAL PHEFACE. 
the first time, or entirely new to science. This work, bearing much the same relation 
to its times that Catesby's and Edwards' respectively did to theirs, is said to have been 
published in twenty-two parts of six plates each, probably during several years ; but the 
date of its inception I have never been able to ascertain. However this may be, Vieillot 
alone and completely fills a period of eight years, during Avhich no other notable or even 
mentionable treatise upon North American birds saw the light. Yieillot's case is an 
exceptional one. As the author of numerous splendidly illustrated works, all of which 
live; of a system of ornithology, most of the generic names contained in which are 
ingrained in the science; of very extensive encyclopaedic work in Avhich hundreds of 
species of birds receive new technical names : Vieillot has a fame which time rather 
brightens than obscures. Yet it is to be feared that the world was unkind during his 
lifetime. At Paris, he stood in the shadow of Cuvier's great name ; Temminck assailed 
him from Holland ; while, as to his work upon our birds, many years passed before it 
was appreciated or in any way adequately recognized. Thus, singularly, so great a work 
as the "Histoire Naturelle" — one absolutely characteristic of a period — had no apj^re- 
ciable effect upon the course of events till long after the times that saw its birth, when 
Cassin, Baird, and others brought Vieillot into proper perspective. There is so little 
trace of Vieillot during the Wilsonian and Audubonian epochs, that his " Birds of North 
America " may almost be said to have slept for half a century. But to-day, the solitary 
figure of the Vieillotian period stands out in bold relief. 
(1808-1824.) 
The Wilsonian Period. — The " Paisley weaver ; " the " Scotch pedler ;" the " melan- 
choly poet-naturalist ;" the "father of American ornithology," — strange indeed are the 
guises of genius, yet stranger its disguises in the epithets by which we attempt to label 
and pigeon-hole that thing which has no name but its own, no place but its own. Alex- 
ander Wilson had genius, and not much of anything else — very little learning, scarcely 
any money, not many friends, and a paltry sliare of " the world's regard " while he lived. 
But genius brings a message which men must hear, and never tire of hearing ; it is 
the word that comes when the passion that conceives is wedded with the patience that 
achieves. Wilson was a poet by nature, a naturalist by force of circumstances, an Ameri- 
can ornithologist by mere accident, — that is, if anything can be accidental in the life of 
a man of genius. As a poet, he missed greatness by those limitations of passion which 
seem so sad and so unaccountable ; as the naturalist, he achieved it by the patience that 
knew no limitation till death interposed. As between the man and his works, the very 
touchstone of genius is there ; for the man was greater than all his works are. Genius 
may do that which satisfies all men, but never that which satisfies itself ; for its inspira- 
tion is infinite and divine, its accomplishment finite and human. Such is the penalty 
of its possession. 
Wilson made, of course, the epoch in which his work appeared, and I cannot restrict 
the Wilsonian period otherwise than by giving to Vieillot his own. The period of Wil- 
son's actual authorship was brief; it began in September, 1808, when the first volume of 
the " American Ornithology " appeared, and was cut short by death before the work was 
finished. Wilson, having been born July 6, 1766, and come to America in 1794, died 
August 23, 1813, when his seventh volume was finished; the eighth and ninth being 
