12 [January, 



back, and coverts of the wings are of a'deep ferruginous color, lower part of the 

 back of a pale yellow ; primaries ferruginous, barred on their inner webs with 

 black. 



Sent from South Carolina to Mr. Pennant, by Dr. Garden ; therefore there can 

 be no doubt of its having been obtained near Charleston, although no one has 

 ever seen it since. The high character of both these gentlemen forbids us to 

 suppose that there was any deception on either side, either in sending the animal 

 to Europe, or in its habitat. 

 The Florida Pheasant : 



Mentioned at page 20 of Stork's introduction to John Bartram's Journal of 

 Travels in East Florida. 



I have had described to me a bird, which must have been this, as inhabiting 

 the hummocks on the banks of St. John's River, but I never had the good fortune 

 to meet with it. 



Norton Sound Bustard, Penn. vol. iii., p. 321. 



A Captain Rich informed Mr. Pennant, that at Norton's Sound, in latitude 

 64 30', he had seen great flocks of a large bird which were very shy, ran very 

 fast, and for a considerable way before they took wing, so that he could never 

 get one shot. 



Black Ibis, Bartram's Travels, p. 148. 



Black on the upper side, breast and belly white, legs and beak as white as 

 snow. Size of Ibis alba. 



Red-billed Heron, Pennant, Supp., p. 65. 



With a red bill. Irids yellow, legs green, plumage white. 



There are many of the smaller birds of America described by Pennant, that I 

 am convinced are not now known, and many more that have lately been de- 

 scribed as new species, that were well known to the English naturalist. Not 

 being, however, sufficiently acquainted with the ornithology of our country, I 

 cannot, without devoting too much time to the subject, determine which they 

 are. It has all along been the custom with American naturalists, entirely to 

 neglect everything that this illustrious man and elegant scholar has written on 

 the subject of our animals; but it would be a labor well repaid by the thanks 

 of every lover of science, if any one would go over his Arctic Zoology, and give 

 us the scientific names of every thing which he has described. 



There remain only a few reptiles to be added to this list : there can be no dif- 

 ficulty in obtaining them if they really exist, and I cannot see how any one can 

 doubt of their existence. A very little attention on the part of persons living 

 where they are said to be found, would soon make us acquainted with them. 



Trionyx, of Bartram. Travels, p. 177. 



They are flat and thin, two and a half feet in length, and eighteen inches in 

 breadth across the back ; in form resembling the sea tortoise, the whole back 

 shell except the vertebrae or ridge, which is not at all prominent, and ribs on each 

 side, is soft and cartilaginous, and easily reduced to a jelly when boiled ; the an- 

 terior and posterior extremities of the back shell appear to be embossed with 

 round horny warts or tubercles ; the belly or nether shell is but small and car- 

 tilaginous, except a narrow cross bar connecting it at each end with the back 

 shell, which is hard and osseous ; the head is large and clubbed, of nearly an 

 oval form, the upper mandible is however, protruded forward and truncated, 

 somewhat resembling a swine's snout, at the extreme end of which the nostrils 

 are placed ; on each side of the base or root of this proboscis are the eyes, which 

 are large. The upper beak is hooked and sharp like a hawk's bill ; the lips and 

 corners of the mouth large, tumid, wrinkled and barbed with long pointed warts 

 which can be projected or contracted at pleasure, which gives the creature a 

 frightful and disagreeable countenance. 



Inhabits St. John's river, Florida. 



It is a remarkable circumstance, that although this tortoise is found as it were 

 at our very doors, no one has ever seen it since the venerable author of the pre- 



