40 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



works relating to America,* and is full of interest to the natural- 

 ist. Harriott's description of the Indians and their customs and 

 beliefs, though strongly tinctured with prepossessed ideas con- 

 cerning them, is thorough and scholarly, and one of the fullest 

 and most reliable of the early treatises upon the inhabitants of 

 North America. 



The chief man of the Roanoke colony, Sir Ralph Lane, usually 

 spoken of as the first governor of Virginia, was a man of great 

 energy and enterprise, f and with the help of Harriott planned 

 and conducted expeditions in every direction ; southward eighty 

 leagues to Secotan, • l an Indian town lying between the rivers 

 Pampticoe and Neus," to the northwest up the Albemarle Sound 

 and Chowan River, to the forks of the Meherrin and Nottaway ; 

 and north one hundred and thirty miles to the Elizabeth River, 

 on the south side of Chesapeake Bay. 



Besides his description of the Indians, Harriott wrote "a particu- 

 lar narrative of all the beasts, birds, fishes, fowls, fruits, and roots, 

 and how they may be useful." A systematic report could hardly 



ony there seated by Sir Richard | Greinuile Knight In the yeere 1585. 

 Which rema \ ined Vnder the gouernment of twelue monethes, | At the 

 special charge and direction of the Honou- | rable SIR WALTER 

 RALEIGH Knight lord Warden j of the stanneries Who therein hath 

 beene fauoured | and authorised by her MAIESTIE | : and her letters pat- 

 ents : I This fore booke Is made in English | By Thomas Hariot, seruant to 

 the above named | Sir WALTER, a member of the Colony and there | im- 

 ployed in discouering | CUM GRATIA ET PRIVILEGIO CAES. MA^ 

 SPECIA 1 - 1 I Francoforti ad Mcenum | Typis Ioannis Wecheli, stantibus 

 vero Theodori | DeBry Anno CIO IC XC, | venales reperuunter in officina 

 Sigismundi Feirabendii. | 4^. pp. 1-33 (1). Title page zuith ornamental 

 border of architectural design. 



* There are now only six or seven perfect copies in existence. These, 

 we are told by Sabine, are in the British Museum and Bodleian libraries, 

 and in the private collections of Messrs. Lennox, Brown, Christie-Miller, 

 and Mann, besides an imperfect copy in the library of Harvard College 

 and one in the possession of Sir Thomas Phillipps. At a sale in London 

 in 1883 a copy sold for 300 pounds. A reproduction in photo-lithographic 

 fac-simile was issued by Sabine in New York in 1S75. 



f See Life of Sir Ralph Lane, by Edward Everett Hale. Archa-.ologia 

 Americana, iv, pp. 317-347. 



