CVl 
LIFE OF WILSON, 
“ I visited a great number of the rich rice planters on the rivers 
Santee and Pedee, and was much struck with the miserable swarms 
of negroes around them. In these rice plantations there are great 
numbers of birds never supposed to winter so far north, and their 
tameness surprised me. There are also many here that never visit 
Pennsylvania. Round Georgetown I also visited several rich plan- 
ters, all of whom entertained me hospitably. I spent ten days in 
Charleston, still, in every place where I stopped a day or two, ma- 
king excursions with my gun. 
“ On the commons, near Charleston, I presided at a singular 
feast. The company consisted of two hundred and thirty-seven 
Carrion Crows, {Viiltui' atratus^ five or six dogs, and myself, though 
I only kept order, and left the eating part entirely to the others. I 
sat so near to the dead horse, that my feet touched his, and yet at 
one time I counted thirty-eight vultures on and within him, so that 
hardly an inch of his flesh could be seen for them. Linneus and 
others have confounded this Vultur with the Turkey Buzzard, but 
they are two very distinct species. 
“As far north as Wilmington, in North Carolina, I met with 
the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. I killed two, and winged a male, 
who alarmed the whole town of Wilmington, screaming exactly 
like a young child crying violently, so that every body supposed I 
had a baby under the apron of my chair, till I took out the bird to 
prevent the people from stopping me. This bird I confined in the 
loom I was to sleep in, and in less than half an hour he made his 
way through the plaster, the lath, and partly through the weather 
boai'ds ; and would have escaped, if I had not accidentally come 
in. The common people confound the P. principalis and P. pilea- 
ills together. 
^ 
“ I am utterly at a loss in my wood rambles here, for there 
are so many trees, shrubs, plants and insects, that I know nothing 
of. There are immense quantities of elegant butterflies, and other 
