8 BIRDS OF ALABAMA 



inception of this investigation, comparatively little detailed 

 information was available concerning the distribution and 

 local abundance of birds in the State, and the total number of 

 species actually recorded within its borders did not exceed 200. 

 In this report 314 forms are listed. 



History of Alabama Ornithology. 



EARLY EXPLORATIONS. 



In the reports of the early explorers and naturalists who 

 visited Alabama the bird life of the State received compara- 

 tively little attention. William Bartram, the first naturalist 

 to visit the State, made no mention in his "Travels" of birds 

 seen ; and Adam Hodgson, who crossed Alabama in 1820, men- 

 tions casually only pelicans, wild turkeys, and doves.t 



In the winter of 1825-26, Bemhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, 

 passed through Alabama from Fort Mitchell to Montgomery, 

 and traveled thence by steamboat to Mobile. On the Alabama 

 River near Cahaba he mentions seeing flocks of wild geese 

 and ducks, "several astonishingly numerous flocks of black- 

 birds," numerous buzzards, and hundreds of paroquets, many 

 of which were shot by members of the party. From Mobile 

 he went to Pensacola, Florida, crossing the bay to Blakely 

 and going thence overland by stage-coach. Near Blakely he 

 speaks of seeing robins, and on the return trip was aroused 

 from his slumbers "by a powerful uproar * * ♦ caused by 

 cranes that flew over the house." After his return from 

 Pensacola, he shipped on a sailing vessel from Mobile for 

 New Orleans, but being delayed by a storm in the gulf, some 

 of the company landed on Dauphin Island, "and brought back 

 a few thrushes which they had shot."* 



In the winter and early spring of 1830, Thomas Nuttall 

 traveled extensively through the Southern States, but ap- 

 parently never published an account of the trip, and his 

 itinerary can only be roughly outlined from a collation of the 

 casual references in his "Manual"! to localities visited. He 

 was at Charleston, South Carolina, on January 12, and at 



tHodeson, Adam, Lcttere from North America, voL 1, pp. 117-164, 262-273 ; 1824. 

 •Saxe-Weimar, Travels through North America, vol. 2, pp. 26-52, 1828. 

 INuttall, Tbomao, Manual of Ornithology, 2 vols., 18S2-S4. 



