This book examines the power of cross-disciplinary thinking. Alexander Wilson was a published poet, an accomplished musician, a skilled artist and an insightful observer. All these skills came together in his truly revolutionary text, American Ornithology, which is the founding document of American ornithology. The elegance of its writing, the novelty of its art, and the excellence of its science make Wilson's Ornithology worth consulting even today, two centuries after its publication.