228 November 



take both eggs, mothers, and young indifferently, 

 becaufe no regulations are made to the contrary. 

 And if any had been made, the fpirit of freedom 

 which prevails in the country would not fuffer 

 them to be obeyed. But though the eatable 

 birds have been diminished greatly, yet there are 

 others, which have rather increafed than de- 

 creafed in number, fmce the arrival of the Eu- 

 ropeans : this can moft properly be faid of a fpe- 

 cies of daws, which the Englifh call Blackbirds* 

 and the Swedes, Maize thieves 4 ) Dr. Linnaeus calls 

 them Gracula Quifcula. And together with them, 

 the feveral forts of Squirrels among the quadru- 

 peds have fpread ; for thefe and the former live 

 chiefly upon maize, or at leaft they are moft 

 greedy of it. But as population increafes, the 

 cultivation of maize increafes, and of eourfe the 

 food of the above-mentioned animals is more 

 plentiful : to this it is to be added, that thefe lat- 

 ter are rarely eaten, and therefore they are more 

 at liberty to multiply their kind, There are like- 

 wife other birds which are not eaten, of which 

 at prefent there are nearly as many as there were 

 before the arrival of the Europeans. On the 

 other hand I heard great complaints of the great 

 decreafe of eatable fowl, not only in this pro- 

 vince, but in all the parts of North America^ 

 where I have been. 



AGED people had experienced that with the 

 fi(h, which I have juft mentioned of the birds: 

 in their youth, the bays, rivers, and brooks, had 

 fuch quantities of fifh, that at one draught-in tha 



* PROPER \.it Jhining blackbirds. . 



morn- 



