68 Miscellaneous Facts and Observations. 



as far north in the United -States as the latitude of 39°. 

 This, it is probable, is the Snake-Bird of the people 

 of Carolina and Georgia. 



8. It has lately been discovered, as the Editor is 

 informed by one of his correspondents, that common 

 charcoal, broken into small pieces, contributes much 

 to the fattening of domestic poultry ; at the same time, 

 that their flesh, by such food, is rendered whiter, and 



more sapid. Hogs, likewise, are fattened by the 



same vegetable substance ; and a portion of this arti- 

 cle, mixed with their ordinary food, is found to be very 

 efficacious in preventing and curing a particular and 

 dangerous disease, to which these useful quadrupeds 

 are, at certain times, liable. When labouring under 

 this disease, which is perhaps a kind of Pica, the poor 

 animals greedily devour not only pieces of dirt, of dif- 

 ferent kinds, but even their own excrements. 



Amphibiology. 



9. The Lacerta orbicularis of Linnaeus is found 

 native within the limits of the United-States. It is 

 pretty well figured by Hernandez, whose fidelity, in 

 many instances, cannot be too much praised., A liv- 

 ing individual of this species of Lacerta has been in 

 the Editor's possession for some time. Like many 

 other species of the genus, it passes a portion of the 



