88 Daniel McKinley 



Carolina (1773:6; 1792, 1:282). Pennant's contemporary, John Latham, 

 who became a universal genius in ornithology by taking uncritically from 

 all previous authors, threw his net widely: "This bird inhabits Guiana, 

 migrating into Carolina and Virginia in Autumn." He leaves one a little 

 staggered by citing only Catesby for this monstrous combination (1781- 

 1785:227). 



In the midst of all this copying from each other, it is a pleasure to record 

 observations of someone who actually saw a parakeet in "Carolina." The 

 alert Lieutenant Enos Reeves marched southward into South Carolina in 

 April 1782 and left a letter date-lined Congaree, Richland County, South 

 Carolina, 20 April. In it he related intimate details of the back country. 

 The countryside had changed dramatically after Charlotte had been 

 reached and Rowan County, North Carolina, was crossed. His group ap- 

 proached McCord's Ferry on the Congaree River: "Here is the first 

 place that I have come across the Palmetto tree or rather species of it 

 called the Palmetto Royal and Parrots or rather Parroquetts, and I am 

 told, that Alligators are to be found in this River" (1897:475-476). 



William Bartram in 1791 offered first of all what everyone already knew 

 or at least said often enough: parakeets "are natives of Carolina and 

 Florida, where they breed and continue the year round." The "year 

 round" part may refer to Florida alone and, more critical in this case, it is 

 uncertain whether he meant to include South Carolina in his generaliza- 

 tion, for his longest stays in Carolina were in North Carolina (1958:182, 

 190-191). In fact, although he seems to have had substantial personal 

 knowledge of parakeets in North Carolina, this whole statement may sim- 

 ply be a bow to the Catesby tradition. 



John Davis, an itinerant English tutor, spent autumn and early winter 

 1799 on the plantation of Thomas Drayton, apparently at Coosawhat- 

 chie, Jasper County. He went with his pupil on hunting forays: "we 

 fired in vollies at the flocks of doves that frequent the corn fields; some- 

 times we discharged our pieces at the wild geese, whose empty cackling 

 betrayed them; and once we brought down some paroquets that were di- 

 recting their course over our heads to Georgia" (1909:91). 



Robert Mills, an early historian of the state, included the "perroquet" 

 in his statewide list, which included about 93 species; in county by county 

 enumerations of birds that frequently repetitively included passenger 

 pigeons, the only county specifically listed as having the "parroquet," as 

 he spelled it the second time, was Beaufort County (1826:101,378). 



Garrulous John James Audubon must also be cited. His genius for 

 burying good observation amidst verbiage and glittering generality again 

 asserted itself. In Volume II of his Ornithological Biography he told of keep- 

 ing a couple of young black vultures in a coop in the yard, giving them "a 



