^Travels 'Through North America 



directed their course to the southward, and the 

 hemisphere was never entirely free from them. They 

 are birds of passage, of beautiful plumage, and are 

 excellent eating. The accounts given of their num- 

 bers are almost incredible; yet they are so well at- 

 tested, and the opportunities of proving the truth of 

 them are so frequent, as not to admit of their be- 

 ing called in question. Towards evening they gen- 

 erally settle upon trees, and sit one upon another 

 in such crowds, as sometimes to break down the 

 largest branches. The inhabitants at such times 

 go out with long poles, and knock numbers of them 

 on the head upon the roost; for they are either so 

 fatigued by their flight, or terrified by the obscurity 

 of the night, that they will not move, or take wing, 

 without some great and uncommon noise to alarm 

 them. I met with scarcely any other food at the 

 ordinaries where I put up: and during their flight, 

 the common people subsist almost wholly upon them. 

 Boston, the metropolis of Massachusetts Bay, in 

 New England, is one of the largest and most flourish- 

 ing towns in North America. It is situated upon a 

 peninsula, or rather an island joined to the continent 

 by an isthmus or narrow neck of land half a mile in 

 length, at the bottom of a spacious and noble har- 

 bour, defended from the sea by a number of small 

 islands. The length of it is nearly two miles, and 

 the breadth of it half a one; and it is supposed to 

 contain 3,000 houses, and 18 or 20,000 inhabitants. 



