Journal of the Mitchell Society 
28 
[ June 
of the country, several strange beasts, birds, fishes, snakes, insects, 
trees and plants, etc.” 
His list of birds follows closely that of Lawson published some 
years previously, and the similarity of the text in many instances 
strongly suggests the idea that he frequently bordered closely on 
plagiarism. 
He enumerates 129 kinds of birds. Five of these at least we 
must eliminate at the start. He makes three eagles out of one, 
naming as he does in addition to the bald eagle the black and 
gray eagles which are simply different phases of the immature 
bird. We, of course, cannot accept two species of leather-winged 
bats for birds, and the nightingale which he mentions is not found 
in a wild state in the Western Hemisphere. 
Although Dr. Brickell in his Preface says regarding his Natural 
History writing “I have been very exact,” the reader is not 
always so impressed. Of the brown pelicans he says “They have 
an odd kind of note much like the braying of an ass, and in spring 
they go into the woods to breed and return in the autumn.” 
Whereas it is a well-known fact that the pelican is an absolutely 
silent bird and breeds on the ocean beaches or on mangrove Keys 
of the Gulf coast. Of the cuckoo he writes “In winter they hide 
themselves in hollow trees, and their feathers come off, and they 
are scabby, they usually lay one egg, and that in the nest of the 
Hedge Sparrow.” 
This reminds one of the story of the Naturalist Humbolt to 
whom a student stated that a lobster was a red fish which runs 
backwards. Humbolt is reported to have replied “You are right 
in all but three things, viz: it is not red, it is not a fish and does 
not run backwards.”’ The Carolina cuckoos do not hide in hol- 
low trees, they do not lose all their feathers at once and become 
scabby, they lay not one but from two to four eggs in a nest of 
their own construction, and finally the hedge sparrow is not found 
in America. 
In treating of the gray eagle he discusses at considerable length 
its interesting characteristics of form and activities. In part he 
says “They are great thieves, and live to be very old and die not 
from age nor any sickness, but of mere hunger by reason that the 
