DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 6 



under his wing. The latter was extended and partially re- 

 vealed to me the deep scarlet of the wing coverts and the glospy 

 black of the quill feathers." Having read in Horace of the 

 famous Roman delicacy, a dish of Flamingo tongues, Lt. Mc- 

 Call had the tongues of his specimens cooked, but while they 

 had a delicate flavor they proved so exceedingly oily that only 

 a small portion could be eaten. 



In another letter he describes Millet Key, a small island ab- 

 solutely covered with eggs while clouds of terns, gulls and 

 skimmers flew screaming overhead. The eggs were so thickly 

 spread upon the sand that without great care one could not 

 walkover the ground without breaking them. "Next morn- 

 ing," he adds, " we gathered four or five bushels of eggs from 

 the ground we had cleared the day before, and I candidly con- 

 fess, I should not have credited the thing had I not been 

 present. ' ' 



Lt. McCall seems to have been the first to notice the differ- 

 ence in the Florida Quail, as he says "the Partridges appeared 

 to me smaller than our northern bird and somewhat differently 

 marked." These observations are among the first made on the 

 birds of Florida by an American naturalist. 



In 1831 Lt. McCall was appointed Aide-de-Camp to Gen. 

 E. P. Gaines, and reported at Jefferson Barracks, Mo. From 

 that time until 1886 he was stationed at Memphis and Nash- 

 ville, Tenn., Courtland, Ala., and Little Rock and White River, 

 Ark, At the last place he made the acquaintance of the Prairie 

 Chicken, which abounded on the Big Prairie all about Mrs. 

 Black's Halfway House where travelers stopped. 



The year 1836 found him back in Florida under Gen. Worth, 

 subduing the Seminole uprising, in which campaign he gained 

 distinction and became a captain on Sept. 21. 



The next ten years were spent mainly on the western frontier, 

 in Missouri and Indian Territory, although he was in Tennessee 

 in 1838 and Florida in 1841. At Fort Scott, Indian Territory, 

 he described the hunting of turkeys and grouse and the abund- 

 ance of Sandhill Cranes. 



In 1846, after the declaration of war with Mexico, Capt. Mc- 

 Call was ordered to join General Taylor and served throughout 



