Alexander Wilson: The Scot Who Founded American Ornithology

This book of 444 pages will delight the hearts of bird lovers everywhere. It is lavishly illustrated with Wilson’s bird portraits, many of them in full color.Audubon’s meeting with Wilson in March, 1810 in Louisville apparently had a profound effect on Audubon, in spite of some discrepancies in Audubon’s memory of the event. He learned from Wilson his plans for a book on American birds. At the time Audubon was working with his brother-in- law Ferdinand Rozier in their retail business in Louisville, and painted portraits and gave drawing lessons to earn extra cash. As for his pattern for most of his life, he spent a great deal of time collecting and drawing birds.But it was after his meeting with Wilson that he apparently first began thinking about publishing a book of American birds, and he also began recording notes on the behavior and the life histories of his subjects, as did Wilson for his book American Ornithology. The Authors wrote “Wilson’s visit had spurred Audubon to focus his extraordinary artistic talent on birds and to plan a publication on the birds of America”, p. 339, bottom.The Authors gave a succinct summary of the fundamental differences in the two men (Page 352): "Audubon was an artist who painted birds. Wilson was an ornithologist who used illustrations to portray the bird and often its ecology and behavior."

Whenever anyone thinks of someone tramping through the newly-formed United States drawing sketches of American birds, one doesn't think of Alexander Wilson. Alexander Who? But Wilson was actually the person who gave John James Audubon, shopkeeper and amateur bird artist the idea to copy what Wilson was doing in putting together a subscription folio of bird prints. Wilson had the great good fortune to be befriended by William Bartram, the leading plants-man of his day who had collected North American plants from most of the United States at the time. Wilson's sketches are reproduced in detail in this book. His story is slender as he died young. But it is amazing that a poor, scantily educated boy from Scotland coming to make a new life for himself and falling in love w/ his new country and wanting to share it.This book has an academic slant. For those of us who aren't biologists, a discussion of bird typology may not be terribly interesting. Arguments over whether Wilson or Audubon is the greater bird artist seem trivial as there is clearly room for both. But if you are in love w/ birds and and the romance of discovering new species in a new world, this book is for you.

Thorough discussion of archival material of Alexander Wilson. Adds significant details of his illustration process and development. Enjoyable for birders, art lovers and ornithologists.

Thanks!

Good read

In Alexander Wilson: The Scot Who Founded American Ornithology the authors promote very successfully the claim made in the book's title. The biography of Wilson therein is not that long. Wilson died young and, for his life, the source materials slim. The heart of the book--and the argument--is the authors' presentation of Wilson's sources for the nine volumes of American Ornithology, the first published survey of the birds of the (then) United States. These are the notes and sketches made in the field from which the plates for the books were engraved. Wilson published illustrations of 268 species, 26 previously unknown. This he accomplished by years of birding in the field.In the notes on habitat, diet, behaviors, and identification problems that Wilson wrote up for each bird presented, the most avid contemporary birder will recognize a peer, if not a superior. His remarks on problems of identification would be echoed in any modern field guide. That, for example, raptors present some of the most difficult identification problems. That orchard orioles occur in a wide variety of plumages. He laments that many New World species had acquired colloquial European names that became a hindrance to identification, as well as being scientifically inaccurate. He asks plaintively, as do many birders today, "Why hasn't a bird a common name that corresponds easily to some easily observed field mark?"However sketchy the biography, the accuracy of Wilson's bird sketches will convince any birder who has followed in his footsteps that Wilson was America's first super birder.

Before there was Audubon, there was Alex Wilson, an early Romantic era Scotch poet who came to America to find freedom and found a continent full of an amazing array of birds. He traveled, observed, drew and became an expert in publication in his efforts to document and depict every American bird known in the early 1800s. He even knocked on the White House door and got Thomas Jefferson to subscribe to the series. Because his successor George Ord disparaged much-loved contemporary John Audubon's popularity, Wilson's legacy suffered. But this book brings him back to life for all who are interested in that era, how "ornithology" got it's start, and birds in particular.

What a beautiful book. I learned so much from this well written and beautifully laid out book.

I loved reading all about Wilson's life and his quest to find and paint and publish all the birds of Ameruca. This is a great tribute to a great man. Wonderfully illustrated. You need to buy the book rather than kindle version to appreciate the drawings and coloured plates

arrived promptly from Germany. Interesting read.