to some mortifying disappointments. Some, from whom he expected at least sympathy and encouragement, looked at his volume with indifference, or returned it to him with a cold compliment. The Governor of New York, he says, "turned over a few pages, looked at a picture or two; asked me my price, and, while in the act of closing the book, added, 'I would not give a hundred dollars for all the birds you intend to describe, even had I them alive.' Occurrences such as these distress me, but I shall not lack ardour in my efforts." In another place he gives an amusing account of a rebuff which he received from a public functionary in Pennsylvania. "In Hanover, Penn., a certain Judge H. took upon himself to say, that such a book as mine ought not to be encouraged, as it was not within the reach of the commonality, and, therefore, inconsistent with our republican institutions! By the same mode of reasoning, which I did not dispute, I undertook to prove him a greater culprit than myself, in erecting a large, elegant, three-story brick house, so much beyond the reach of the commonality, as he called them, and, consequently, grossly contrary to our republican institutions. I harangued this Solomon of the Bench more seriously afterwards; pointing out to him the great influence of science on a young nation like ours, and particularly the science of natural history, till he began to show such symptoms of intellect as to seem ashamed of what he had said."—After his return from the North, having remained but a few days at home, he started on a tour to the South, visiting, in the course of it, every city and town of importance as far as Savannah, in Georgia. Of the first volume but

two hundred copies had been printed; and, although the list of subscribers was not very much enlarged, the publisher was encouraged to strike off a new edition of three hundred more. The second volume was published in 1810, and the adventurous ornithologist almost immediately set out for New Orleans, by way of Pittsburg. He descended the Ohio alone in a skiff, as far as Louisville, upwards of seven hundred miles. Here he sold his frail bark; and, having walked to Lexington, seventy miles farther, he purchased a horse, and, without a companion or a guide, made his way through the wilderness to Natchez, a distance of six hundred and seventy-eight miles. Some of the particulars of this journey, taken from a letter of the ornithologist, dated at Natchez, May 28, 1811, will give the best idea of his courage, enterprise, and general character.

"I was advised by many not to attempt this journey alone; that the Indians were dangerous, the swamps and rivers almost impassable without assistance; and a thousand other hobgoblins were conjured up to dissuade me from going alone. But I weighed all these matters in my mind; and, attributing a great deal of this to vulgar fears and exaggerated reports, I equipped myself for the attempt. I rode an excellent horse, on whom I could depend; I had a loaded pistol in each pocket, a loaded musket belted across my shoulder, a pound of gunpowder in my flask, and five pounds of shot in my belt. I bought some biscuit and dried beef, and on Friday morning, May 4th, I left Nashville. + * * Eleven miles from Nashville, I came to the Great Harpath, a stream of about fifty yards

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which was running with great violence. I could not discover the entrance of the ford, owing to the rain and inundations. There was no time to be lost. I plunged in, and almost immediately my horse was swimming. I set his head aslant the current; and, being strong, he soon landed me on the other side. * Next day, the road winded along the high ridges of mountains that divide the waters of the Cumberland from those of the Tenessee. I passed a few houses to-day; but met several parties of boatmen returning from Natchez and New Orleans, who gave me such an account of the road, and the difficulties they had met with, as served to stiffen my resolution to be prepared for everything. These men were as dirty as Hottentots; their dress, a shirt and trousers of canvass, black, greasy, and sometimes in tatters; the skin burnt wherever exposed to the sun; each with a budget wrapped up in an old blanket; their beards, eighteen days old, added to the singularity of their appearance, which was altogether savage. These people came from the various tributary streams of the Ohio, hired at forty or fifty dollars a trip, to return back on their own expense. Some had upwards of eight hundred miles to travel." "On Monday, I rode fifteen miles, and stopped at an Indian's to feed my horse. * * * I met to-day two officers of the United States army, who gave me a more intelligent account of the road than I had received. I passed through many bad swamps to-day; and, about five in the evening, came to the banks of the Tenessee, which was swelled by the rain, and is about half a mile wide, thirty miles below the muscle shoals, and just below a