mi 



paradise. The name tlioy have given it, is expressive of 

 its supei-ioi' excellence, and the veneration they have for 

 it ; the wakon bird being in their language, the bird of 

 the Great Spirit. It is nearly the size of the swallow, of 

 A brown color, shaded about the neck Avith a bright green ; 

 the wings are of a darker brown than the body ; its tail 

 is composed of four or five feathers, Avhich are three times 

 as long as its ])ody, and which are Ijeautifully shaded with 

 green and purple. It carries this fine length of plumage in 

 the same manner as a peacocl\. but it is not known whether 

 it raises it into tlie erect jiubition, that birds sometimes 

 does." "" I nevei- saw," continues Carver, '' any of these birds 

 in the Colonies, l)ut the Xaw-do wessie Indians caught sev- 

 eral of them, when 1 was in their country, and ; cemed to 

 treat them as if they were of a sui)erior rank to any other 

 of the feathered race." 



George Henry Loskiel, a Moravian missionary, when rela- 

 ting the history of his mission among the Indi;ins of North 

 America in 1788, gives us a catalogue of the birds he no- 

 ticed, and describes the Wakon-bird as follows : " There 

 is a bird in these parts, called by the Indians, the bird of 

 the Great Spirit, and is probaldy a species of the bird of 

 paradise. It has a l)eauuful sliape, and is as large as the 

 swallow. Its neck is of a light green, and four or five 

 feathers, three times the length of its body, variagatcd with 

 gold and purple extends from its tail." It is difficult to 

 determine what these birds were, seen by Carver and Los- 

 kiel in the Indian countries. I have thought they nfight 

 have been either the Fork-tailed Flycatcher, or the Swal- 

 low-tailed Flycatcher, or in the absence of a more definite 

 description, we may class the Wakon bird with Professor 

 Rafinesque's Red-headed Swalloiv, that no ornithologist 

 has ever been able to discover. 



The Whet-Saw, a l)ird described by Carver, has been the 

 ■occasion of several amusing mistakes by ornithologists. The 

 bird during the day, being hid in the most gloomy swamps, 

 and uttering unseen its singular note, has given rise to 

 many conjectures in regard to it. Audubon, I think, was 

 the first ornithologist, who identified it with the little 

 Acadian Owl. Carver's notice of the bird is as follows : 

 " The Whet-Saw is of the Cuckoo kind, being like that, a 

 -solitary bird, and scarcely ever seen. In the summer 



