These volumes are presented to William MacGillivray with sentiments of the highest esteem and best wishes by his truly and sincerely attached friend
John J. Audubon
Edinburgh July 1 t 1839.
Professor John Wilson gave the third volume of the Ornithological Biography a very handsome notice in Blackwood's Magazine, and on New Year's Day, 1836, Audubon acknowledged the compliment in the following letter:[127]
Audubon to John Wilson ("Christopher North")
My Dear Friend:—
The first hour of this new year was ushered to me surrounded by my dear flock, all comfortably seated around a small table in middle-sized room, where I sincerely wished you had been also, to witness the flowing gladness of our senses, as from one of us "Audubon's Ornithological Biography" was read from your ever valuable Journal. I wished this because I felt assured that your noble heart would have received our most grateful thanks with pleasure, the instant our simple ideas had conveyed to you the grant of happiness we experienced at your hands. You were not with us, alas! but to make amends the best way we could, all of a common accord drank to the health, prosperity, and long life, of our generous, talented, and ever kind friend, Professor John Wilson, and all those amiable beings who cling around his heart! May those our sincerest wishes reach you soon, and may they be sealed by Him who granted us existence, and the joys heaped upon the "American woodsman" and his family, in your hospitable land, and may we deserve all the benefits we have received in your ever dear country, although it may prove impossible to us to do more than to be ever grateful to her worthy sons.
Accept our respectful united regards, and offer them to your family, whilst I remain, with highest esteem, your truly thankful friend and most obedient servant,
John J. Audubon.