son Victor in the counting house of a Mr. Berthoud. He reached Philadelphia
on April 5, and remained there till the following August, studying
painting, exhibiting his birds, making many new acquaintances, among them
Charles Lucien Bonaparte, giving lessons in drawing at thirty dollars per
month, all the time casting wistful eyes toward Europe, whither he hoped
soon to be able to go with his drawings. In July he made a pilgrimage to
Mill Grove where he had passed so many happy years. The sight of the old
familiar scenes filled him with the deepest emotions.

In August he left Philadelphia for New York, hoping to improve his
finances, and, may be, publish his drawings in that city. At this time he
had two hundred sheets, and about one thousand birds. While there he again
met Vanderlyn and examined his pictures, but says that he was not impressed
with the idea that Vanderlyn was a great painter.

The birds that he saw in the museum in New York appeared to him to be set
up in unnatural and constrained attitudes. With Dr. De Kay he visited the
Lyceum, and his drawings were examined by members of the Institute. Among
them he felt awkward and uncomfortable. "I feel that I am strange to all
but the birds of America," he said. As most of the persons to whom he had
letters of introduction were absent, and as his spirits soon grew low, he
left on the fifteenth for Albany. Here he found his money low also.
Abandoning the idea of visiting Boston, he took passage on a canal boat for
Rochester. His fellow-passengers on the boat were doubtful whether he was a
government officer, commissioner, or spy. At that time Rochester had only
five thousand inhabitants. After a couple of days he went on to Buffalo
and, he says, wrote under his name at the hotel this sentence: "Who, like
Wilson, will ramble, but never, like that great man, die under the lash of
a bookseller."