biography
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1766–1813)
|
| biography:
| Ornithologist, born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, W Scotland, UK. He worked as a weaver from the age of 13, and was jailed for a libellous poem against the mill-owners (1792). He emigrated to the USA in 1794 and became a schoolteacher, studying art and ornithology in his spare time. Encouraged by a neighbour, the naturalist William Bartram, he devoted himself to ornithology, and made several journeys across America, collecting species and drawing them. In 1806 he was employed on the American edition of Rees's Cyclopaedia, and then completed the first seven volumes of the illustrated American Ornithology (1808–14). Wilson's storm-petrel and Wilson's phalarope were named after him. |
|
|
