{Water-Terebin.}
Water Terebins Are Small; Containing About As Much Meat As A Pullet,
And Are Extraordinary Food; Especially, In
May and June.
When they lay, their Eggs are very good; but they have so many Enemies
that find them
Out, that the hundredth part never comes to Perfection.
The Sun and Sand hatch them, which come out the Bigness of a small Chesnut,
and seek their own Living.
{Brimstone-Snake.}
We now come again to the Snakes. The Brimstone is so call'd, I believe,
because it is almost of a Brimstone Colour. They might as well
have call'd it a Glass-Snake, for it is as brittle as a Tobacco-Pipe,
so that if you give it the least Touch of a small Twigg,
it immediately breaks into several Pieces. Some affirm,
that if you let it remain where you broke it, it will come together again.
What Harm there is in this brittle Ware, I cannot tell;
but I never knew any body hurt by them.
{Chicken-Snake.}
The Egg or Chicken-Snake is so call'd, because it is frequent about
the Hen-Yard, and eats Eggs and Chickens, they are of a dusky Soot Colour,
and will roll themselves round, and stick eighteen, or twenty Foot high,
by the side of a smooth-bark'd Pine, where there is no manner of Hold,
and there sun themselves, and sleep all the Sunny Part of the Day.
There is no great matter of Poison in them.
{Wood-Worm.}
The Wood-Worms are of a Copper, shining Colour, scarce so thick
as your little Finger; are often found in Rotten-Trees.
They are accounted venomous, in case they bite, though I never knew any thing
hurt by them. They never exceed four or five Inches in length.
The Reptiles, or smaller Insects, are too numerous to relate here,
this Country affording innumerable Quantities thereof;
as the Flying-Stags with Horns, Beetles, Butterflies, Grashoppers,
Locust, and several hundreds of uncouth Shapes, which in the Summer-Season
are discovered here in Carolina, the Description of which
requires a large Volume, which is not my Intent at present.
Besides, what the Mountainous Part of this Land may hereafter
lay open to our View, Time and Industry will discover,
for we that have settled but a small Share of this large Province,
cannot imagine, but there will be a great number of Discoveries made
by those that shall come hereafter into the Back-part of this Land,
and make Enquiries therein, when, at least, we consider that
the Westward of Carolina is quite different in Soil, Air, Weather,
Growth of Vegetables, and several Animals too, which we at present
are wholly Strangers to, and to seek for. As to a right Knowledge thereof,
I say, when another Age is come, the Ingenious then in being
may stand upon the Shoulders of those that went before them,
adding their own Experiments to what was delivered down to them
by their Predecessors, and then there will be something
towards a complete Natural History, which (in these days)
would be no easie Undertaking to any Author that writes
truly and compendiously, as he ought to do.
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