Alexander Wilson

Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) was a Scottish-American ornithologist and poet. He was born at Paisley, son of a weaver, bred to the loom. However, he began his literary career as a poet, and was imprisoned for a lampoon on a Paisley notability. After his release he went to America unfriended, with only his fowling-piece in his hand, and a few shillings in his pocket. He led an unsettled life for a time. Finally, he acquired the arts of drawing, colouring, and etching, and, so accomplished, commenced his studies on the ornithology of America, and prevailed upon a publisher in Philadelphia to undertake an exhaustive work which he engaged to produce on the subject. The first volume appeared in 1808, and the seventh in 1813, on the publication of which he met his death from a cold he caught from swimming a river in pursuit of a certain rare bird.

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