Some time elapsed, during which I never heard of him, or of his work.
At length, having occasion to go to Philadelphia, I, immediately after
my arrival there, inquired for him, and paid him a visit. He was then
drawing a White-headed Eagle. He received me with civility, and took
me to the Exhibition Rooms of REMBRANDT PEALE, the artist, who had
then portrayed NAPOLEON crossing the Alps. Mr WILSON spoke not of
birds or drawings. Feeling, as I was forced to do, that my company
was not agreeable, I parted from him ; and after that I never saw him
again. But judge of my astonishment some time after, when on reading
the thirty-ninth page of the ninth volume of American Ornithology, I
found in it the following paragraph :—
" March 23d, 1810.—I bade adieu to Louisville, to which place I had
four letters of recommendation, and was taught to expect much of every
thing there ; but neither received one act of civility from those to whom
I was recommended, one subscriber, nor one new bird; though I delivered
my letters, ransacked the woods repeatedly, and visited all the
characters likely to subscribe. Science or literature has not one friend
in this place."
T H E BLACK WARRIOR,
FALCO HARLANI.
P L A T E L X X X V I . MALE AND FEMALE.
LONG before I discovered this fine Hawk, I was anxious to have an
opportunity of honouring some new species of the feathered tribe with the
name of my excellent friend Dr RICHARD HARLAN of Philadelphia. This
I might have done sooner, had I not waited until a species should occur,
which in its size and importance should bear some proportion to my gratitude
toward that learned and accomplished friend.
The Hawks now before you were discovered near St Francisville,
in Louisiana, during my late sojourn in that State, and had bred in the
neighbourhood of the place where I procured them, for two seasons, although
they had always eluded my search, until, at last, as I was crossing
a large cotton field, one afternoon, I saw the female represented in the Plate
standing perched on the top of a high belted tree in an erect and commanding
attitude. It looked so like the Black Hawk {Falco niger) of
WILSON, that I apprehended what I had heard respecting it might prove
incorrect. I approached it, however, when, as if it suspected my evil intentions,
it flew off, but after at first sailing as if with the view of escaping
from me, passed over my head, when I shot at it, and brought it winged
to the ground. No sooner had I inspected its eye, its bill, and particularly
its naked legs, than I felt assured that it was, as had been represented
by those persons who had spoken to me of its exploits, a new species.
I drew it whilst alive; but my intentions of preserving it and carrying
it to England as a present to the Zoological Society were frustrated
by its refusing food. It died in a few days, when I preserved its skin,
which, along with those of other rare birds, I have since given to the
British Museum, through my friend J. G. CHILDREN, Esq. of that Institution.
A few days afterwards I saw the male bird perched on the same tree,
but was unable to approach him so long as I had a gun, although he frequently
allowed me and my wife to pass close to the foot of the tree when
we were on horseback and unarmed. I followed it in vain for nearly a
fortnight, from one field to another, and from tree to tree, until our phy