NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 127 



females ; and that I might leave no room for doubt, repeated the search often on many of 

 them, but could never find a cock at that time of the year. Early in the spring both 

 cocks and hens make a transient visit together, at which time I made the like search as 

 before, and both sexes were plainly distinguishable. In September, 1725, lying upon the 

 deck of a sloop in a bay at Andros' Island, I, and the company with me, heard three nights 

 successively flights of these birds, (their note being plainly distinguishable from others,) 

 passing over our heads northerly, which is their direct way from Cuba to Carolina ; from 

 which I conceive, after partaking of the earlier crop of rice at Cuba, they travel over sea 

 to Carolina for the same intent, the rice there being at that time fit for them." Natural 

 History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands, vol. 1. 



Bartrara seems to have adopted the same opinion, but with some hesitation. " It is 

 (says he) the commonly received opinion, that they are male and female of the same 

 species, i. e. the black-pied rice birds the male, and a yellowish clay-coloured one the 

 female ; the last mentioned appearing only in autumn, when the oryza zizania are about 

 ripening ; yet, in my opinion, there are some strong circumstances which seem to operate 

 against such a conjecture, though generally believed." 



About the middle of May, the black-pied rice bird, called the male, appears in Penn- 

 sylvania, about which time the great yellow ephemera, called May fly, and a species of 

 Iocustae, appear in great numbers, the favourite food of these birds. Travels in South 

 Carolina, vol. 1. 



Dr. Barton states, that the rice bird makes its appearance near Philadelphia, about the 

 20th of May, and that the females exclusively make their appearance about the 20th of 

 August. " On the authority of Catesby," says he, " it has been believed by the most re- 

 spectable naturalists, (Pennant and others,) that the males and females migrate separately 

 at different seasons. Thus it is imagined, that the males make their appearance in the 

 vicinity of Philadelphia in the spring, and the females in the autumn, or close of summer. 

 Some facts which have come under my knowledge, induce me to suspect, that this is a 

 vulgar error ; one of the many mistakes with which natural history is crowded and de- 

 formed, but at present I can only throw out the suspicion." Fragments of Natural 

 History. 



Although these supposed separate several migrations may be considered anomalous, 

 yet they are not without precedent. The male cuckoo arrives in England before the 

 female. The male of the motacilla Iuscinia, or nightingale, arrives there about a week 

 after the female. The male of the sylva sylvicola, or wood wren, precedes the female 

 in its vernal migrations to that country, a week or ten days. And what is still more ex- 

 traordinary is, that we have the authority of Linnaeus for saying, that the female chaf- 



I 



