46 
| Vox,. VII 
A Manuscript of Charles Lucian Bonaparte 
BY W. OTTO EMERSON 
W HEN the Cooper homestead was vacated last summer I was permitted to 
look over a rubbish heap of catalogues, pamphlets, and odds and ends, 
such as are usually consigned to the lire on an occasion of this sort. 
Among a great variety of relics of past literary activity I came across a bundle of man- 
uscript written by Prince Charles Lucian Bonaparte. Examination proved this to 
CHARLES LUCIAN BONAPARTE 
FROM A LITHOGRAPH LOANED BY MR. RUTH VEN DEANE 
be the first draft of the well-known “American Ornithology . ” a Volume I, which 
was published in 1825, was not in the bundle, volumes II to IV being represented. 
The fac-simile page here reproduced is natural size. Any doubts as to the authen- 
ticity of the manuscript were set at rest by a comparison of the writing with sev- 
eral signatures of Bonaparte, and also by a slip of paper, bearing in the hand- 
a. This “American Ornithology” is sometimes united with Wilson’s. It is a district work, however, entitled: 
“American | Ornithology | or, | The Natural History | of | Birds inhabiting the United States | not given by Wilson. | 
With figures drawn, engraved and colored from Nature. | By Charles U[ucian] Bonaparte | [in MS — Prince of 
Musignano | A. M. F. M. L. S. — all titles dropped in third volume]. Vol. I [-XV] | Philadelphia | etc. | i 825[ — 1833.] 
The title page of volume II of the MS. has “Uucian” spelled out, and a list of ten titles of membership in American 
and European Societies follows the name. 
