LIFE OF WILSON. 
cliii 
“ The fifth volume of this extensive work is submitted to the 
public with all due deference and respect; and the author hav- 
ing now, as he conjectures, reached the middle stage of his 
journey, or in traveller’s phrase, the ‘half-way house,’ may be 
permitted to indulge himself with a slight retrospect of the 
ground he has already traversed, and a glimpse of that which 
still lies before him. 
“ The whole of our Land Birds (those of the sixth volume 
included, which are nearly ready for the press) have now been 
figured and described, probably a very few excepted, which, it 
is hoped, will also shortly be obtained. These have been gleaned 
up from an extensive territory of woods and fields, unfrequen- 
ted forests, solitary ranges of mountains, swamps and morasses, 
by successive journies and excursions of more than ten thousand 
miles. With all the industry which a single individual could 
possibly exert, several species have doubtless escaped him. 
These, future expeditions may enable him to procure; or the 
kindness of his distant literary friends obligingly supply him 
with. 
‘ ‘ In endeavouring to collect materials for describing truly 
and fully our feathered tribes, he has frequently had recourse 
to the works of those European naturalists who have written 
on the subject; he has examined their pages with an eager and 
inquisitive eye; but his researches in that quarter have been but 
too frequently repaid with disappointment, and often with dis- 
gust. On the subject of the manners and migrations of our 
birds, which in fact constitute almost the only instructive and 
interesting parts of their history, all is a barren and a dreary 
waste. A few vague and formal particulars of their size, speci- 
fic marks, &c. accompanied sometimes with figured represen- 
tations that would seem rather intended to caricature than to il- 
lustrate their originals, is all that the greater part of them can 
boast of. Nor are these the most exceptionable parts of their 
performances; the novelty of fable, and the wildness of fanci- 
ful theory, are frequently substituted for realities; and conjec- 
tures instead of facts called up for their support. Prejudice, 
VOL. I — u 
