On the Native Forests vf Aberdeenshire. 13 



got of the ground. A breach being once thus made in the thicket, 

 a constant additional destruction goes on from year to year all round 

 it ; and it is impossible to enter one of these plantations where this 

 mischief has commenced, while even an ordinary gale is blowing, 

 without becoming immediately sensible of the nature of it. The 

 ground for several feet round every tree in the neighbourhood of 

 the breach, is in a constant state of great agitation, being tossed up 

 and down by the slender and almost superficial roots, yielding with 

 every gust of wind that reaches the top ; and even where the trees 

 are not immediately overturned, a circumstance which happens to 

 many of them in the harder storms, the roots are yet so much dis- 

 engaged from the soil, and so injured in their smaller radicles, that 

 every spring multitudes of them are found entirely killed by the 

 storms of the preceding winter. 



(To be continued.) 



ART. IV. Notices of the Chactaw or Choktah Tribe of North 

 American Indians. By F. B. Young, Esq.* 



The Chactaw Indians are the most savage of all the southern 

 tribes, and are situated between 32° and 33° north latitude and 89° 

 west longitude. They were computed to have about 4000 war- 

 riors in 1820, and were then governed by three kings, viz. Puck- 

 sinubee, Mushilatubee, and Pushamatahaw. This tribe, unlike 

 their neighbours the Cherokees, have as yet made but little pro- 

 gress towards civilization. Even agriculture, the most useful of 

 the arts, is scarcely known, or but sparingly practised, t The only 

 method on which they depend for acquiring the necessaries of life, 

 is hunting the wild animals. The wild bee, for the sake of the 

 wax, is sought after, and is an article of commerce between them 

 ^nd the whites. The little agriculture of the maize or Indian 

 corn, is exclusively left to the women. The exercise of the chase, 

 which among them is a most serious and laborious employment, 

 gives a strength and activity to their limbs unknown to the whites. 

 The same cause, perhaps, renders their bodies in general uncom- 

 monly straight and well proportioned. Their muscles are firm and 

 strong. Their bodies and heads flattish, which is the effect of art 

 during infancy. They have long black hair, straight, and extreme- 

 ly coarse, nearly as coarse as horse hair, — dark small eyes,' — promi- 

 nent cheek-bones. They have a firm erect walk, and not unfrequently 

 a dignified appearance. The women are low in stature, ungrace- 

 ful in their movements, and generally coarse and corpulent. Their 



• Read before the Royal Physical Society, Dec. 1829. 



f One of their kings attempted to rear the cotton plant, but hearing of the 

 death of his son, (who was on his return from one of the colleges in the northern 

 states,) he neglected his crop at a critical period, and thereby lost it. from ^w 

 pircuihstftnce he concluded that none but the wliites could rear it. 



