WILSON, ALEXANDER, American ornithologist, was b. at Paisley, Scotland, July 6, 1766. Tie was the son of a weaver, and was apprenticed to, the weaving-trade, at which lie worked seven years, amusing himself at the same time by writing verses. As soon as he was free he gratified a roving disposition by mounting a peddler's pack, and went to Edinburgh to take part in a discussion, in which lie maintained the poetic claims of Fergusson against Allan Ramsay, and, in the same cause, wrote The Laurel .Disputed, a Poem. The piece by which lie is best remembered, is a droll poem in the Scottish dia lect, styled Natty and Meg. He also contributed to The flee, and made the acquaintance of Burns. He was prosecuted for a lampoon upon a resident of Paisley, and condemned to a short imprisonment, and to burn the libel with his own hand at the Paisley cross. Determined to leave a country where his genius was unappreciated, lie sailed from Bel fast for America, and landed at Newcastle, Del., July 14, 1794, with a few borrowed shillings in his pocket, and no acquaintances. He got work with a copper-plate printer In Philadelphia, then with a weaver; traveled as a peddler in New Jersey, where the bril liant plumage of the birds attracted his attention; then engaged as a school-teacher in Pennsylvania, and then walked 800 miles to visit a nephew in New York. Teaching a school once more in New Jersey, he lived near the botanic garden of William Bertram, who was well acquainted with birds, and, stimulated and encouraged in his studies of nature. Wilson resolved to make a collection of all the birds that were to be found in
America. In Oct., 1804, he set out on his first excursion, in which he traveled to Niagara Falls, and wrote The Foresters, a Poem. Iu 1805, he learned etching of a Mr. Lawson, from whom he had already learned to draw; and was employed oil the American edition of Ree's Cyclopcedia. He soon prevailed upon the publisher, Bradford, to undertake an American ornithology. In Sept., 1808, lie brought out the first volume, but in a style too costly for the tastes and fortunes of the period, so that he obtained only 41 subscrib ers in the eastern states, and had no better success in the southern. The second volume was, notwithstanding, brought out in 1810. In 1811 he made a canoe voyage down the Ohio, and traveled overland through the lower Mississippi valley, from Nashville to New Orleans, collecting specimens for his third volume. In his eager pursuit of a rare species of bird of which he wanted a specimen, he swam across a river, and caught oold, which ended in his death, at Philadelphia, Aug. 23, 1813, when he had nearly completed his work—the 8th and 9th volumes being published after his death. It was continued by Charles Lucien Bonaparte, in 4 vols. (1825-33). A monument was erected to his memory in Paisley abbey churchyard in 1874.—See Grosart's Poems and Miscellaneous Prose of Alexander Wilson (1876).