290 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



further mentions that, in September, 1725, he was 

 lying upon the deck of a sloop in a bay at Andros 

 island, where he and the company with him dis- 

 tinctly heard, for three successive nights, the flight 

 of these birds, whose note is plainly distinguishable 

 from others, passing over head northerly, which is 

 their direct way from Cuba to Carolina. This led 

 him to conclude that, after partaking of the earlier 

 crop of rice in Cuba, they proceed over the sea to 

 Carolina with the same object, the rice being there 

 ready for them. 



The same writer speaks of the bluewing teal, a 

 bird which, in the month of August, comes in great 

 numbers to Carolina, and remains until the rice, on 

 which they feed, is gathered in, in the month of 

 October. In Virginia, where no rice grew, they 

 fed on a kind of wild oat, growing in the marshes, 

 and in both instances became extremely fat. 



The same observant naturalist, in his fine work 

 on the natural history of Carolina, Florida, and the 

 Bahama Islands, gives an account of a migratory 

 bird, which he calls the ricebird. The following is 

 an abridgment of his account : In the beginning of 

 September, while the grain of rice is yet soft and 

 milky, innumerable flights of these birds arrive from 

 some remote parts, to the great detriment of the in- 

 habitants. In the year 1740, an inhabitant near 

 Ashley River had forty acres of rice so devoured 

 by them that he was in doubt whether the quantity 

 they had left was worth the expense of gathering in. 

 They are in Carolina esteemed more delicate eat- 

 ing than any other bird. When they first arrive 

 they are lean, but become in a few days so exces- 

 sively fat, that they fly sluggishly and with difficulty, 

 and, when shot, frequently break with the fall : they 

 continue three weeks, and retire by the time that 

 the rice begins to harden. He mentions it as a 

 very singular circumstance, that the henbird alone 

 comes in the September visit. Seeing them to be 



