BIRDS OF NORTH CAROLINA 



T. GILBERT PEARSON, C. S. BRIMLEY AND H. H. BRIMLEY 



ORNITHOLOGICAL HISTORICAL SKETCH 



By T. GILBERT PEARSOX 



The earliest record of an ornithological observation in North Carolina is that of 

 Captain Barlowe, who in company with his associate, Captain Amadas, visited the 

 coast in 1584. Entering the sounds by one of the inlets, they sailed to Roanoke 

 Island and landed. Evidently they climbed one of the tree-covered dunes girding 

 the east side of the island. Captain Barlowe writes: "Under the bank or hill 

 whereon we stood, we beheld valleys replenished with goodly cedar trees, and having 

 discharged our harquebus shot, such a flock of cranes (the most part white) arose 

 under us, with such a cry redoubled by many echoes, as if an army of men had 

 shouted together." Visiting Roanoke Island to-day, one will still see goodly cedar 

 trees, but the Herons, which doubtless were the birds to which he referred, are no 

 longer to be found in such numbers. Three hundred and thirty years of man's 

 destructive influences have ■^^Titten their story large among the Vjird-life of that 

 interesting region, and the most northerly breeding colony of Herons kno^vn to 

 exist in the State is situated on an island in Mattamuskeet Lake, forty-five miles 

 away in a southwesterly direction. The birds here are so few that their united 

 cries would not eciual the lusty shout of a corporal's guard, and none of the white 

 varieties are to be seen. 



Two years after this, viz., in 1586, Thomas Harlot came to the island and made 

 a list of the birds he found there. Of these he says there were "turkey-cocks and 

 turkey-hens, stock doves, partridges, cranes and herons, and in winter great store 

 of swan and geese. Of all sorts of fowl, I have names in the country language, 

 of four score and six; of which number, besides those that be named, we have 

 taken, eaten, and have the pictures as they were drawn, with names of the inhabit- 

 ants; of several strange sorts of water fowl eight, and seventeen kinds more of 

 land fowl, although we have seen and eaten many more which for want of leisure 

 there for the purpose could not be pictured; and after we are better furnished and 

 stored upon further discovery with their strange beasts, fish, trees, plants and herbs, 

 they shall be published. There are also parrots, falcons, and merlin-baws, which 

 although with us they be not used for meat, yet for other causes I thought good to 

 mention." 



One of the most interesting items in this narration is the reference to "parrots," 

 which establishes the fact wthout doul^t that the Carohna Paroquet at one time 

 inhabited the immediate neighborhood of the coast. 



John Lawson, Gentleman, in his History of North Carolina, published in Lon- 

 don in 1714, devotes fully ten pages to an enumeration of the birds of the State, 

 and a dissertation on the habits and activities of many of them. Many of the 



