Since I became acquainted with Mr. Alexander Wilson, the celebrated author of the well known and duly appreciated work on American Birds, and subsequently with my excellent friend, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, I have been aware of the keenness with which every student of Natural History presses forward to describe an object of his discovery, or that may have occurred to travellers in distant countries. There seems to be a pride, a glory in doing this, that thrusts aside every other consideration; and I really believe that the ties of friendship itself would not prevent some naturalists from even robbing an old acquaintance of the merit of first describing a previously unknown object. Although I have certainly felt very great pleasure, when, on picking up a bird, I discovered it to be new to me, yet I have never known the desire above alluded to. This feeling I still cherish; and in spite of the many injunctions which I have received from naturalists far more eminent than I can ever expect to be, I have kept, and still keep, unknown to others, the species, which, not finding portrayed in any published work, I look upon as new, having only given in my Illustrations a number of them proportionate to the drawings of already known species that have been engraved. Attached to the descriptions of these, you will find the place and date of their discovery. I do not, however, intend to claim any merit for these discoveries, and should have liked as well that the objects of them had been previously known, as this would have saved some unbelievers the trouble of searching for them in books, and the disappointment of finding them actually new. I assure you, good reader, that, even at this moment, I should have less pleasure in presenting to the scientific world a new bird, the knowledge of whose habits I do not possess, than in describing the peculiarities of one long since discovered. It is a pity that Audubon did not maintain so admirable an attitude towards the description of new species as was here expressed, but at the close of his career in England, when he desired to make his work on American ornithology as complete as possible, he appeared as keen to describe and publish new birds as any of his contemporaries. Shortly after his return to London in the spring of 1831, Audubon sent Swainson the following letter with a copy of the first volume of his _Biography_ of Birds, but his one-time friend was not the author of an extended and impartial review of the work, which appeared in the _Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal_ in the same year.[105] _Audubon to William Swainson_ LONDON _April 28th 1830_ [1831] MY DEAR MR SWAINSON,