R I C E B U N T I N G. ^ - 361 



September, while the rice is yet milky ; and commit fuch devaftations, 

 that forty acres of that grain have been totally ruined by them in a 

 fmall time. 



They arrive very lean ; but foon grow fo fat, as to fly with diffi- 

 culty ; and, when fhot, often burfl: with the fall. They continue in 

 Carolina not much above three weeks, and retire by the time the 

 rice begins to harden. They are efteemed to be the moft delicate 

 birds of the country. I am informed, that the male birds have a 

 fine note. 



It is very fingular, that, among the myriads which pay their 

 autumnal vifit, there never is found a fingle cock-bird. Mr. Catefiy 

 verified the fa6t by diffedting numbers, under a fuppofition, that 

 there might have been the young of both fexes, which had not ar- 

 rived at the full colors j but found them all to be females, which 

 are properly the Rice-birds. Both fexes make a tranfient vifit to 

 Carolina in the fpring. It is faid, that a few (tragglers continue in 

 that country the whole year. 



Rice, the periodical food of thefe birds, is a grain of India * .- 

 it probably arrived in Europe (where it has been much cultivated) 

 by way of Ba£fria, Sujia, Babylon, and the lower Syria -f. The 

 time in which it reached Italy is uncertain : for the Oryza of Pliny 

 is a very different plant from the common Rice j but the lafl: has 

 been fown with great fuccefs about Verona for ages paft ; and was 

 imported from thence, and from £^7/)/ J, into England; until, by a 

 mere accident, it was introduced into Carolina. It was firft planted 

 there about 1688, by Sir Nathaniel J ohnfon, then governor of the 

 province ; but the feed being fmall and bad, the culture made little, 

 progrefs. 



Chance brought here, in 1696, a veflel from Madagafcar ; the 

 mafter of which prefented a Mr. Woodward with about half a bufhel, 

 of an excellent kind § j and from this fmall beginning fprung an 



• Rati Hiji. PL ii. 1446. f Straho, lib. xv. p. 1014. , % Anderfin'i 



H^a. ii. 327. § The fame, 238— and Catijby, ii. Account of Carolina, xvii. 



3 A immenfc 



