90 Daniel McKinley 



1840s. Plantation owner J. Motte Alston declared, however, that it had 

 disappeared from the Santee River area (probably Georgetown County) 

 "before my day" — he was born in 1821. His grandmother recalled large 

 flocks of them, probably around 1780 (1953: 13). This dramatically un- 

 even pattern of distribution, with vague allegations of previous abun- 

 dance, seems to typify the parakeet over much, perhaps most, of its range. 

 Any popular conjuration of it as a rival of the passenger pigeon's millions 

 must be rejected out of hand. 



Broome's attribution of breeding, year-round status to the parakeet in 

 South Carolina was probably uncritical (1837:65). That in the hack 

 historical work by Simms certainly was (1843:13). Ramsay's history con- 

 sidered the "perroquet" as permanent resident (1809, 2:185), as un- 

 informative a remark as that of Professor Gibbes (1848:vi) who prepared 

 a list that has been widely cited but which seems to have come straight 

 out of Audubon's check-list of American birds (1839:189), even pre- 

 serving Audubon's generic howler of Centurus for the parakeet. 



A more reliable sounding record, on the other hand, has come down 

 from Albert Twiggs, who had a long continued interest in natural history. 

 As a 17-year old soldier "in the Confederate Army attempting unsuc- 

 cessfully to stem Sherman's march from Savannah to Beaufort and 

 Charleston ... he had seen a number of flocks of paroquets on the Com- 

 bahee River and in the pine woods between Yemassee and the coast, on 

 numerous occasions" (Murphey 1937:24). The time of this observation 

 can be calculated as late autumn 1864 and the place extreme southern 

 South Carolina. It seems to be one of the last observations upon the 

 species as a probably continuous resident in South Carolina, all other re- 

 ports being at widely spaced intervals. 



One of these later, perhaps accidental, appearances has been described 

 for me by Jay Shuler (letter 1961). Dr. Eddie McClellan, an intelligent 

 and interested observer, had recalled that a parakeet appeared after a big 

 storm in 1885 and was killed with a slingshot in McClellansville, 

 Charleston County. Since the species still existed in considerable num- 

 bers in parts of Florida at that time, such an occurrence is quite possible. 

 But, it is also clear that there were no contemporary reports of parakeets 

 in the South Carolina area. Witness Walter Hoxie's suggestion that 

 "Parrot Ridge" on Edding Island, near Frogmore, Beaufort County, was 

 "a name which designates many localities hereabouts and was doubtless 

 bestowed by the early settlers when the gaudy Parrakeets flocked in this 

 region" (1886). Hoxie was a talented and experienced ornithologist and 

 he certainly had no first-hand knowledge of parakeets in South Carolina. 

 His passing comment, more etymology than ornithology to begin with, 

 was a poor reed for Bent to have leaned on in naming Edding Island a 



