A Elliot, George Neivbold Lawrence. I Jan. 



continued to reside at Flushing, where he married Elizabeth Smith 

 of Smithtown. After his death, his widow married Sir Philip Car- 

 teret, Governor of New Jersey, who named Elizabethtown after her. 

 From his earliest youth George Lawrence was a lover of birds, 

 and passed much of his spare time studying their habits. But the 

 early age when he entered actively in business (for he was only 

 sixteen when he became a clerk, and twenty when he was made a 

 partner in his father's house), did not permit him to have much 

 leisure to devote to ornithology. In 1820, he was permitted 

 to have a gun, seventy-five years ago ! and then he began to 

 pay attention to the movements of the feathered hosts, their 

 arrival and departure in the spring and autumn. At this time he 

 was living during the summer at his father's country place, called 

 ' Forest Hill,' about eight miles from the City Hall, on the high 

 ground overlooking Manhattanville and the Hudson River, not 

 very far distant from where the American Museum of Natural 

 History now stands. He has, in one of his papers, recorded his 

 observations of bird migration at this spot, which in view of our 

 knowledge of the locality as it is to-day, sounds very strangely 

 to us. From the middle of July for some weeks there would 

 be, every afternoon, a flight of Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius 

 pheeiiiceits), in flocks of fifty or more individuals, while in August 

 and September there would be late in the day a continuous flight 

 of White-bellied Swallows ( Tachychieta bicolor), with a few 

 Barn Swallows {Chelidon erythrogaster). At the beginning of 

 September, when there was a strong northwest wind, Passenger 

 Pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius) would appear in great numbers 

 in the mornings, with occasional flocks throughout the day. 

 From Forest Hill north was an unbroken forest to Fort Washing- 

 ton Point, and the Pigeons could be seen speeding over the tree 

 tops at a rate of seventy-five miles or more an hour. Another of 

 the old country seats at that time was Claremont, now for some 

 years used as a restaurant and situated not far from General 

 Grant's tomb, and during one of these flights of the Pigeons more 

 than a hundred were shot one morning by a gentleman from 

 the roof of the dwelling. He enumerates many other species 

 of birds that passed Forest Hill during the various months of the 

 summer, and also speaks of the Robins pursued by gunners in 



