MIGRATION". 271 



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 blue- wing* 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 rice-bird. 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 

 inhabitants. 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 eating 

 than any other bird. When they first arrive they are 

 lean, but become in a few days so excessively 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 be- 

 gins to harden. He mentions it as a very singular 

 circumstance, that the hen-bird alone comes in the 

 September visit. Seeing them to be all feathered 

 alike, he at first imagined that they were the young 

 of both sexes not perfected in their colours ; but by 

 opening several scores, as they were prepared for the 

 spit, he found them to be all females ; and, after re- 

 peated searches, he was never able to find one cock- 

 bird at that time of the year. But in the spring of 



