Wayne: Birds of South Carolina. xiii 



In A Brief Description of Carolina, etc., published for Robert 

 Home, in 1666, 1 is found a casual reference to birds. 



Quotations of a similar character are given by Mr. Leverett M. 

 Loomis 2 from the section on Carolina in Ogilby's America (1671) ; 

 from a description of Carolina published in 1682, by T[homas] 

 A[sh]; and from The Present State of Carolina with Advice to the 

 Settlers. By R. F. (1682) . He also refers to observations on birds 

 in Samuel Wilson 's Account of the Province of Carolina in Amer- 

 ica (1682); in Carolina Described more fully than heretofore, 

 published anonymously in 1684; and in A Letter from South Car- 

 olina, which appeared in three editions in 1710, 1718, and 1732. 

 The notice of birds in Gov. Glen's Description of South Carolina 

 (1761) is said to be drawn from this letter. 



In the journal of his voyage from Charleston to North Carolina, 

 John Lawson (1709) gives brief notes on the birds seen or shot for 

 food. 



CATESBY. 



Scientific ornithology, however, begins in South Carolina with 

 Mark Catesby's two large and handsome volumes on The Natural 

 History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands, published 

 in London in 1731-1748. The parallel between the aims and 

 achievements of Catesby and Audubon is striking. 



Catesby arrived in Carolina May 23, 1722, and spent the first 

 year in the coast country, "searching after, collecting and de- 

 scribing the Animals and Plants." He then visited the upper, 

 uninhabited parts of the State, continuing up towards the moun- 

 tains. An Indian guide carried his collecting box and painting 

 materials, and he painted the plants while fresh and drew the 

 birds from life. His attitude toward the work is best explained 

 in his own words: 



"... as there is greater Variety of the feather 'd Kind than of 

 any other Animals, (at least to be come at) and as they excel in 

 the Beauty of their Colours, and have a nearer relation to the 

 Plants which they feed on and frequent; I was induced chiefly 

 (so far as I could) to compleat an Account of them, rather than to 

 describe promiscuously Insects and other Animals; by which I 

 must have omitted many of the Birds (for I have not Time to do 

 all) ; by which method I believe very few Birds have escaped my 



1 Reprinted in Carroll '» Historical Collections. 



3 An historical Sketch of South Carolinian Ornithology. (Read February 6, 1801, 

 before the Linnman Society of New York.) 



