Burns — Audubon Corrilspondence. 10;5 



AUDUBON CORRESPONDENCE. 



BY FRANK I,. BURNS. 



A LETTER FROM AUDUBON TO HARLAN, DESCRIBING A 



SUPPOSED NEW SPECIES. 



Through the kindness of Mr. Alfred C. Redfield, of Wayne, 

 Penna., I am enabled to offer an unpublished letter from John 

 James Audubon to Dr. Richard Harlan, of Philadelphia. It 

 is closely written on a single sheet, postmarked "Charleston, 

 S. C, Dec. 23," and contains his original description of the 

 PoJybonis cherhvayi, Audubon's Caracara, from the freshly 

 killed bird. The date of capture does not exactly agree with 

 his published account. Apparently, Dr. Harlan made no 

 effort toward publicly ushering this bird into our North 

 American fauna ; and its introduction was not accomplished 

 until 183-i, when Audubon published his second volume of 

 Ornithological Biography, then fully aware that the species 

 was not wholly new to science, having been accredited to 

 tropical America many years before. 



This letter was presented by Mrs. Harlan to the Great 

 Central Fair for the U. S. Sanitary Commission, during the 

 Civil war ; and has since been a part of the Redfield collec- 

 tion. 



"Description of a New Species to be named by Doctors Har- 

 lan or Pickering, — shot at vSt. Augustine, November 24, 1831 — 

 by /. /. Audubon. 



Bill along the ridge '[}i Inch. Along the Gap 2%. — ^/j^ of 

 an Inch high, depressed, semi-circular above, slightly bent 

 toward the tip, with acute edges. — Lower mandible truncate, 

 edges sharp — both pale blue. Cere broad and along with the 

 fleshy part around the mouth and chin deep Carmine Colour. 

 —Tongue muscular, fleshy, tipped with a hard cartilage, the 

 latter bright Yellow tipped with black, the former carmine. — 

 Nostrils, small placed near the outer edge of the cere, nearly 

 [illegible]. Eyes bright umber edge.d with red and yellow 

 skin — eye brows not prominent— bristles around and on the 

 lower parts of both mandibles, black, recurved, stiff. — Upper 



