1908 ] Ornithological Work in North Carolina 
35 
the coot. His “Lay- wing” was perhaps one of the plovers, the 
golden, black-bellied, Wilsons or piping, or may have been the 
dowitcher or turnstone. 
Among the hawks he speaks of the “Hobbie”. I am yet at a 
loss to understand to what species he referred as all the other small 
hawks are evidently accounted for under such English titles as 
Falcon, Merlin, etc. 
j He made the mistake of regarding the young Bald Eagle as a 
distinct species and calls it the gray eagle. This error, by the 
way, was long followed by subsequent observers of North American 
j bird life. Audubon, writing over a hundred years later, tells in 
! much detail about the life history of the gray eagle, in fact he has 
• left us a full page drawing of the magnificent “Bird of Washing- 
| ton”, as he calls it. The fact that the young bald eagle does not 
acquire its white head and tail until after an elapse of three years 
! will account in a measure at least for its mistaken identity. 
On the other hand some of Lawson’s statements which bear on 
jthe face evidences of being perfectly truthful, reveal some valuable 
si information. One of these is his account of the breeding of the 
black duck in the eastern marshes and another which tells of the 
j common occurrence of the sandhill crane. These are the only 
(two positive records we have of this character within the borders 
! of North Carolina, for so far as known no one else has recorded 
I cranes in the state, and while the black duck is a common winter 
visitor and has long been suspected of breeding here, we know of 
no authoritative record of a nest having been found since this 
j -account given by Lawson. 
I In the days of Lawson the wild pigeon which has since become 
1 extinct, was an aboundant bird in North Carolina. They proba- 
! bly gathered to breed in vast numbers in the mountains, after 
; which they spread over the low country and their numbers being 
| augmented by great flights from the north, the pigeon population 
(must have been something enormous. Lawson says “I saw such 
i prodigious flocks of these pigeons in January and February, 1701-2 
ij (which were in the hilly country between the great nation 
j if the Esaw Indians and the pleasant stream of Sapona, 
I vhich is the west branch of Clarendon, or Cape Fear River, that 
