2 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 



George Archibald McCall was born March 16, 1802, at Phila- 

 delphia, son of Archibald McCall and Elizabeth Cadwalader. 

 He was educated at West Point Military Academy where he 

 graduated in 1822, and was commissioned lieutenant in the 

 Fourth Infantry stationed at Pensacola, Florida. The territory 

 of Florida had just been acquired by the United States, the 

 purchase having been ratified in March, 1822. From there Lt. 

 McCall went with his regiment to Hillsborough [Tampa] Bay, 

 where the Seminole Agency's headquarters were located, and 

 where he remained until sent north on recruiting service in 

 July, 1830. 



In an autobiographical volume which he prepared during the 

 last years of his life,^ we find many allusions to hunting and 

 occasionally an ornithological note of interest, although it is 

 evident that much material of this kind was eliminated from 

 the journals and letters upon which the volume is based, as 

 being of little general interest. Fortunately, however, many 

 ornithological notes from the journal had been furnished to 

 Cassin and published in his "Birds of California and Texas," 

 to which reference has already been made. 



From a letter dated Hillsborough Bay, December 1, 1827, 

 and published in his " Letters from the Frontier," he describes 

 the shooting of a Flamingo on Anclote Key, thirty miles above 

 the entrance to Hillsborough Bay, where later he got three 

 others. Two were adult males and two young of the year "in 

 pale, grayish, rose-color" plumage. He says: "As I de- 

 bouched from the thicket my eye caught sight of the grotesque 

 figure but splendid plumage of a Flamingo on the beach not 

 over fifty yards from where I stood. It was the first bird of 

 the species I had ever seen in the flesh, although I had from 

 childhood been familiar with the stuffed specimens of the 

 museums. As the bird had not yet perceived me, I stood for 

 several minutes to observe his manners. He was standing in 

 the water knee-deep and was with his great clumsy beak cleans- 

 ing and arranging the pen feathers on the side of his body, just 



* Letters from the Frontier, written during a period of Thirty Years' Ser- 

 vice in the Army of the United States. By Major General Geo. A, McCall, 

 late Commander of the Pennsylvania Eeserve Corps, Philadelphia, 1868. 



