NORTH CAROLINA 137 



of musk. One has not much to fear from them, ex- 

 cept when bathing or swimming in the rivers. Their 

 increase is greatly checked by the fore-mentioned buz- 

 zards, which hunt out the alligator eggs in the sand 

 and eat them. They live chiefly on fish; but their 

 voraciousness tempts them to snap at anything that 

 comes in their way, and pieces of wood, leather, or 

 iron have been found in their maws. 



Of serpents there are found in this and the neigh- 

 boring regions almost all the known species of North 

 America, and rather plentiful, but few of them are 

 venomous. They do not often resort to the great 

 swamps, because they find no good holes in the wet 

 earth, and in winter would be in danger of freezing 

 or drowning under the ice, in their holes. A snake, 

 called the ' black runner/ was killed some time ago 

 and found to be 12 ft. long. 



Our journey was favored with a series of clearer, 

 warm days.* Frogs were everywhere noisy in their 

 swamps ; bees flew ; bats fluttered of an evening ; 

 black urchins gamboled naked in the open. This, in 

 the first week of January, was augury of an early 

 spring; however, scarcely a plant dares unfold until 

 the beginning of the month of March, when the spring 

 may really be said to open in this region. Spring- 

 frosts here fall at times even in April. But severely 



* The same warm weather which we had in North Carolina 

 the 4 th , 5 th , and 6 th of January, with south-west winds, was 

 observed at Philadelphia on the 6 th and 7 th . There as here 

 it was the effect of the southern wind, which reached the 

 northern parts later. Philadelphia newspapers stated that at 

 the time the thermometer rose 53 degrees within a short 

 space, and snow and ice suddenly melted off. 



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