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Updated: June 9, 2025
This tract, worthy of its well-informed and able author, was published along with his Catalogue of North American Animals. The Naturalist's and Traveller's Companion. By J.C. Lettsom, M.D. London, 1799 8vo. Analysis of the Natural Classification of Mammalia, for the Use of Travellers. Introduction to the Ornithology of Cuvier, for the Use of Travellers.
I had sought acquaintance and had gained some knowledge such as books cannot supply, not only of owls in general, but of that particular species of owls to which Tommy belonged, who, in the heraldry of ornithology, was Carine brahma, an Indian spotted owlet. This branch of the ancient family of owls has always been eccentric. It does not mope and to the moon complain.
We had before us representatives of five different peoples, five different types of costume, each quite unlike the others. All five are known to us in ethnography under the generic name of Hindus. Similarly eagles, condors, hawks, vultures, and owls are known to ornithology as "birds of prey," but the analogous differences are as great.
For several years he worked on a catalogue of the birds of Kansas, inspiring several persons in different parts of the State to assist him. Later this work was turned over to Colonel N.S. Gross, of Topeka, an enthusiast in ornithology.
This is Audubon's account of the meeting: "One fair morning I was surprised by the sudden entrance into our counting room at Louisville of Mr. Alexander Wilson, the celebrated author of the American Ornithology, of whose existence I had never until that moment been apprised. This happened in March, 1810. How well do I remember him as he then walked up to me.
But now that we have so clearly seen the disastrous effects of this method of "studying ornithology," which is not in harmony with our humane civilization, it is to be hoped that a better method will be adopted that "finer way" which Thoreau found and put aside his fowling-piece to practise.
As a youth Audubon was an unwilling student of books; as a merchant and mill owner in Kentucky he was an unwilling man of business, but during his whole career, at all times and in all places, he was more than a willing student of ornithology he was an eager and enthusiastic one.
I had left him quietly seated in the chair of Botany and Ornithology in Harvard University, and the next I saw of him, he was strolling about San Diego beach, in a sailor's pea-jacket, with a wide straw hat, and barefooted, with his trousers rolled up to his knees, picking up stones and shells. He had travelled overland to the Northwest Coast, and come down in a small vessel to Monterey.
It is a surprise that awaits every student of ornithology, and the thrill of delight that accompanies it, and the feeling of fresh, eager inquiry that follows, can hardly be awakened by any other pursuit. Take the first step in ornithology, procure one new specimen, and you are ticketed for the whole voyage. There is a fascination about it quite overpowering.
By perusing Wilson's Ornithology attentively before I left England I knew where to look for the birds, and immediately recognised them in their native land. Since his time I fear that the white-headed eagles have been much thinned. I was perpetually looking out for them, but saw very few. One or two came now and then and soared in lofty flight over the Falls of Niagara.
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