xxxviii LIFE OF WILSON. 
“ I have attempted two of those prints which Miss Nancy* so 
obligingly, and with so much honour to her own taste, selected for 
me. I was quite delighted with the anemone, but fear I have made 
but bungling work of it. Such as they are I send them for your 
inspection and opinion; neither of them is quite finished. For 
your kind advice towards my improvement I I'eturn my most grate- 
ful acknowledgments. 
“The duties of my profession will not admit me to apply to 
this study with the assiduity and perseverance I could Wish. Chief 
part of what I do is sketched by candle-light; and for this I am 
obliged to sacrifice the pleasures of social life, and the agreeable 
moments which I might enjoy in company with you and your 
amiable friend. I shall finish the other some time this week; and 
shall be happy if what I have done merit your approbation.” 
As Wilson advanced in drawing, he made corresponding pro- 
gress in the knowledge of Ornithology. He had perused the works 
of some of the naturalists of Europe, who had written on the sub- 
ject of the birds of America, and became so disgusted with their 
caricatured figures, fanciful theories, fables and misrepresentations, 
that on turning, as he himself observes, from these barren and 
musty records to the magnificent repository of the woods and 
fields — the Grand Aviary of Nature^ his delight bordered on ado- 
ration.f It was not in the inventions of man that the Divine 
Wisdom could be traced; but it was visible in the volume of crea- 
tion, wherein are inscribed the Author’s lessons of goodness and 
love, in the conformation, the habitudes, melody and migrations, 
of the feathered tribes, that beautiful portion of the work of his 
hands. 
To invite the attention of his fellow-eitizens to a study atten- 
ded with so much pleasure and improvement, was the natural wish 
* Mr. Bartram’s niece, now the consort of Col. Carr, f See preface to vol. v, passim. 
