Swainson's early life affords a striking illustration of nepotism, and his later years reflected some of its disastrous consequences. At fourteen he was appointed as a junior clerk in the Liverpool Customs House at a salary of eighty pounds a year, to service under his father, who had in turn succeeded his grandfather in the office of Collector. At eighteen he received an appointment in the commissary department of the English army and went to Sicily, where he remained eight years, during which he worked industriously at natural-history pursuits. Having attained the rank of Assistant Commissary-General, at twenty-six he was retired on half-pay because of ill health. Upon returning to England he became a member of the Linnæan Society, in 1816, before his departure for Brazil, where with Henry Koster he collected birds for nearly two years. Having settled again at Liverpool, he entered the Royal Society, on the recommendation of Sir Joseph Banks, in 1820, the year in which he began to publish the results of his studies. Swainson was married in 1825, but upon the death of his father in the following year, his income so much reduced that he resorted to authorship as a profession; of course he found it a poor crutch, though he worked with indefatigable industry and produced from one to two illustrated volumes each year. Eventually he became embittered against Audubon and towards the world of men and things in general, especially after 1835, when domestic bereavement and trouble of many kinds pressed hard upon him. He repeatedly applied to the Zoölogical Department of the British Museum for a position which went to others; he tried to sell his collections to the Museum and failed; he applied for an appointment on the Civil List but was denied; then he decided to give up the struggle of authorship in England and leave the country. In 1840 Swainson emigrated with his family to New Zealand, where he seems to have met with no better success, although his scientific activity did not wholly cease. Though four years younger than Audubon, he outlived him five years, dying in 1856. His excellent draughtsmanship, tireless industry, and punctilious habits were deserving of recognition, but he suffered from the lack of a liberal education, and was rather too vain, too inclined to jealousy and to quarrel with his contemporaries, to have achieved great success. [Illustration: WILLIAM SWAINSON THOMAS NUTTALL CHARLES L. BONAPARTE CONSTANTINE S. RAFINESQUE SWAINSON FROM HIS "BIOGRAPHY OF ZOÖLOGISTS"; NUTTALL FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER DERRY, 1825; BONAPARTE FROM A PHOTOGRAPH IN POSSESSION OF MR. RUTHVEN DEANE, FIRST PUBLISHED IN "CASSINIA"; AND RAFINESQUE FROM RICHARD ELLSWORTH CALL, "RAFINESQUE."]