[12] 



Agelaius phceniceus at once attracted the attention of the colon- 

 ists from the conspicuous colours of the male. Prof. Goode* in 

 his most interesting and instructive address states that Capt. John 

 Smith is the first to speak of this i)ird, but besides the reference 

 made to it by Strachey there is mention made of " Black Birds 

 with crimson wings" in a fragment by another contemporaneous 

 writer. f The immense flocks of Wild Pigeons, Ectopistes mi- 

 gratoria such as are described in the above quotation from 

 Strachey are referred to in similar terms by several other authors 

 among them Hamor. At a subsequent date the following inci- 

 dental allusion is made by an unknown writer. J 



"Another [prodigy] was fflights of pigeons in breadth nigh a 

 quarter of the midhemisphere and of their length was no visible 

 end ; whose weights brake down the limbs of large trees whereon 

 these rested at nights, of which the ffowlers shot abundance and 

 eat 'em ; this sight put the old planters under the more portent- 

 ous apprehensions, because the like was seen (as they said) in 

 the year 1640 when th' Indians committed the last massacre, but 

 not after, untill the present year 1675." A similar account of 

 their abundance is given in the letter of Clayton soon to be 

 quoted and afterwards by Col. Byrd (Westover Mss. p. 57) and 

 still more recently by Audubon and Wilson. 



Regarding the Carolina Parrot, Conurus carolinensis^ we 

 have the detailed description of Strachey given above, the brief 

 allusions by Capt. John Smith to " Parrats" and by Hamor to 

 " Parakertoths," and it is given in the list of 1649 above quoted, 

 (a further reference to "most rare coloured Parraketoes" being 

 made on another page of the same document,) showing that the 

 species was well known. Col. Byrd writing in 1 728-1 736 speaks 

 as follows§ "Very often, in autumn when the apples begin to 



*The Beginnings of Natural History in America. An Address delivered at the 

 sixth anniversary meeting of the Biological Society of Washington By G. Brown 

 Goode, President of the Society, Washington 1886. 



tObservations gathered out of a Discourse of the Plantation of the Southeme 

 Colonie in Virginia bj' the English 1606, v\^ritten by that Honorable Gentleman 

 Master George Percy. Purchas IV. 1685-1690, Ed. 1625. Reprinted in Arber's 

 edition of the Works of Capt. John Smith p. LVII. 



JThe Beginning, Prog^ress and Conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion in Va. in„the 

 years 1675 and 1676, by T. M. Force's Historical Tracts Vol. I. 



§The Westover Manuscripts containing the history of the dividing line be- 

 twixt Virginia and North Carolina; A journey to the land of Eden 1733; and 

 a progress to the mines. Written from 1728 to 1736, and now first published 



