LIFE OF WILSON. 
clxxiii 
Having been ‘^something of a traveller/’ it would be reason- 
able to conclude that Wilson had been familiar with “ novel 
sights;” but we no where find that he ever beheld a toad leaping 
into day from its rocky domicil of five thousand years, or a mer- 
maid “ sleeking her soft alluring locks” in the sun. That wonder 
of the “ vasty deep,” the Sea Serpent oi Gloucester, had not at- 
tracted the attention of the public in his time ; but if it had, there 
is little doubt that he would have promptly exerted himself to ex- 
pose one of the grossest fictions that was ever palmed upon the 
credulity of mankind. 
That the industry of Wilson was great his work will for ever 
testify. And our admiration is excited that so much should have 
been performed in so short a time. When we take into considera- 
tion the state of our country, as respects the cultivation of the phy- 
sical sciences ; and that in the walk of Ornithology, particularly, 
no one, deserving the title of a Naturalist, had yet presumed to 
tread; when we view the labours of foreigners, who had interested 
themselves in our natural productions, and find how incompetent 
they were, through a deficiency of correct information, to instruct; 
and then when we reflect that a single individual, without patron, 
fortune, or recompense,'^ accomplished, in the space of seven years, 
as much as the combined body of European naturalists took a cen- 
tury to achieve, we feel almost inclined to doubt the evidence upon 
which this conclusion is founded. But it is a fact, which we feel a 
pride in asserting, that we have as faithful, eomplete, and interest- 
ing an account of our birds in the estimable volumes of the Ameri- 
can Ornithology, as the Europeans can at this moment boast of 
possessing of theirs. Let those who question the correctness of 
this opinion examine for themselves, and determine according to 
the dictates of an unbiassed judgement. 
We need no other evidence of the unparalleled industry of our 
author, than the fact, that of ttvo hundred and seventy-eight species 
2 X 
VOL. IX. 
