Carolina Parakeet in Carolinas 83 



in the world, with great burthen of Grasse on it, and in some places very 

 high, the woods stor'd with abundance of Deer and Turkies every where; 

 we never going on shoar, but saw of each also Partridges great store, 

 Cranes abundance, Conies, which we saw in several places; we heard 

 several Wolves howling in the woods, and saw where they had torn a Deer 

 in pieces. Also in the River we saw great store of Ducks, Teile, Widgeon, 

 and in the woods great flocks of Parrakeeto's; the Timber that the woods 

 afford for the most part consisting of Oaks of four or five sorts, all differing 

 in leaves, but all bearing Akorns very good." To certify that the expe- 

 dition was not bent entirely upon esthetic and scientific ends, he 

 enumerated the game taken: "In that time as our business called us up 

 and down the River and Branches ... we kill 'ci of wild-fowl, four Swans, 

 ten Geese, twenty nine Cranes, ten Turkies, forty Duck and Mallard, 

 three dozen of Parrakeeto's, and six or seven dozen of other small Fowls, 

 as Curlues and Plovers, etc." (Salley 1911:46, 53). The decimation of a 

 continent was underway. 



But, such early writers served their own days only, if any at all, and 

 seem to have been soon forgotten. More seminal, however, was the work of 

 John Lawson, loyal adopted son of North Carolina. I think it probably sig- 

 nificant that he left no evidence of having seen parakeets in the arduous 

 journey from Charleston, South Carolina, to Pamlico Sound, North Caro- 

 lina, in the period of late 1700 to late February 1701. That trip took his 

 party up the Santee River and its tributary, the Wateree, to the vicinity of 

 Union County, North Carolina. From there they went northward deep 

 into central parts of the latter state, thence eastward to coastal "Pampti- 

 cough" (Pamlico), a distance of some 550 miles (see Lefler's comments, 

 Lawson 1967). 



Lawson's 1709 account of the aboriginal and natural history of the 

 colony of North Carolina has extensive accounts of many kinds of animals 

 and plants, including parakeets. It is full of information — and misin- 

 formation — that must have cost him much conversation and cor- 

 respondence. "Parrakeetos are of a green Colour, and Orange-Colour'd 

 half way their Head, " he wrote in part. "Of these and the Allegators, there 

 is found none to the Northward of this Province" (1967:146-147). 



Colonel William Byrd of Westover, ever in search of an outlet for his 

 restless energies (and of a source of income) had something to say about 

 parakeets in North Carolina. He had little use for the scurvy inhabitants of 

 that state, but mentioned as an extenuating circumstance in their failure 

 to plant orchards that "paraqueets" frequently raided fruit trees in 

 autumn (1929:77-78). Or so he said. I suspect the passage was put in for 

 literary effect; his secret diary, from which he later wrote up the public ac- 

 count, does not mention the parakeets at all {op. at.). 



