VIRGINIA 45 



often damages the wheat greatly, especially if the grain 

 lies long in the straw unthreshed ; but in this case, it 

 is said, lime scattered in does the insect harm. Also, 

 the wheat-fields are fouled by faulty wheat and many 

 kinds of weeds (darnel, false grain, cheat) ; to obviate 

 this, it is recommended that the grain be soaked in a 

 strong salt-lye, what floats is discarded, and the good 

 heavy grains are to be seeded, mixed with shell-lime. 



Sundry butterflies were still to be seen at this late 

 time of the year. Of birds we observed none except a 

 few vultures and wood-peckers, the Motacilla Sialis, 

 Loxia Cardinalis, and the Virginia partridge (Tetrao 

 virginiana L.). It is said the partridge-hen lays 17-20 

 eggs, and all the hens belonging to one covey use the 

 same nest ; the claim is made that now and then 2-300 

 eggs are found together. The cocks are distinguished 

 by white feathers on the throat and head, where the 

 hens have brown. We were astounded to meet on this 

 road two travelling journeymen, Germans, their lug- 

 gage slung behind quite in the German manner; they 

 were journeymen-tanners from Alsace, who had arrived 

 in the Chesapeak Bay in a French ship, and were now 

 to seek their fortune in this country. A traveller on foot 

 is in Virginia an uncommon spectacle ; only negroes go 

 a-foot; gentlemen ride. But the whole country being 

 made up of gentlemen and their negroes, and almost no 

 other distinction obtaining, it is always something ex- 

 traordinary to meet a white foot-traveller. The tav- 

 erns, or ordinaries as they are called in Virginia, are 

 intended only for the reception of gentlemen, especially 

 in the lower country where very few teamsters come, 

 and they always take with them their provisions and 

 horse-fodder and lie in the bush. Along the chief 



