LETTER VIIL 195 



terned, which makes a humming Noife, that I 

 fuppofe, fir ft gave them the Name. They can fly 

 fwiftly, and I have known one of them give chafe 

 to a Hawk, but his diminutive Size and Agility 

 were, I imagine, his only Protedlion : I have 

 ftQH four or five forts of them, and at leaft nine 

 or ten of the Parrot kind. 



14. In Paragraph twenty-nine, of my fecond 

 Letter, I might have informed you, That the Pe- 

 lican is a large brownifh Dun coloured Bird, (I 

 never was clofe to one) that delights to be about 

 the Water. Its Craw holds above a Quart, and 

 in it the Female puts Provilion for her Young 

 ones, which fhe can difgorge at pleafure to them; 

 and that, perhaps, gave rife to the old alluiion, 

 of a Pelican^s tearing open her Breaft with her 

 Bill, in order to feed her Young with her own 

 Bowels, rather than fuffer them to ftarve, when 

 we would typify a Perfon*s kind and benevolent 

 difpofition. 



1 5« We have a large, long, and ftinking fly, 

 of a Chocolate hue, (met with chiefly, in our 

 Lower-ground Plantations, for I do not remem-^ 

 ber that I ever faw one, in our Mountain Plan- 

 tation,) that lays a long round Egg, of a brown 

 dufkifh colour, quite flat at each end, and fhaped 

 like a bit of fmall Stick, half an inch long. This 

 Egg is glutinous, and will ftick to any thing, 

 remaining there till the warm Weather hatches 



N 2 its 



