lx 
LIFE OF WILSON. 
meet with that is curious. Look out, now and then, for natural 
curiosities as you traverse your farm; and remember me as you 
wander through your woody solitudes.’’ 
From Mr. JEFFERSON. 
Monticello, April 7? 1805. 
« Sir, 
“ I received here yesterday your favour of March 18, 
with the elegant drawings of the new birds you found on your tour 
to Niagara, for which I pray you to accept my thanks. The Jay 
is quite unknown to me. From my observations while in Europe, 
on the birds and quadrupeds of that quarter, I am of opinion there 
is not in our continent a single bird or quadruped which is not suf- 
ficiently unlike all the members of it’s family there to be consider- 
ed as specifically different ; on this general observation I conclude 
with confidence that your Jay is not a European bird. 
The first bird on the same sheet I judge to be a Muscicapa 
from it’s bill, as well as from the following circumstance. Two or 
three days before my arrival here a neighbour killed a bird, xin- 
known to him, and never before seen here, as far as he could learn; 
it was brought to me soon after I arrived; but in the dusk of the 
evening, and so putrid that it could not be approached but with 
disgust. But I retain a sufficiently exact idea of it’s form and co- 
lours to be satisfied it is the same with yours. The only difference 
I find in yours is that the white on the back is not so pure, and 
that the one I saw had a little of a crest. Your figure, compared 
with the white bellied Gobe-mouche^ 8 Buff. 342. PL enlum. 566. 
shews a near relation. Buffon’s is dark on the back. 
“ As you are curious in birds, there is one well worthy your 
attention, to be found, or rather heard, in every part of America, 
and yet scarcely ever to be seen; it is in all the forests, from spring 
