198 LETTER VIIL 



Sea. Woods Rogers aflerts the fame. As they are di^ 

 difturbed fo much at Nevis^ and other inhabit- 

 ' ed Iflands, they feldom care to come a fhore 

 there. 



18. We have fometimes an odd fort of Fowl, 

 bred there, between an Englifld Drake, and a 

 Mufcovian Duck ; the fore part of it, as far as 

 to the middle of its Body, exadly refembling an 

 Englijh Drake, and the hinder part, that of a 

 Mufcovian Duck. It is very near as large as a 

 Mufcovian Duck, and reckoned fine eating : But 

 as it is of the Male kind, it never propagates its 

 Species. 



19. I have itoxi frequent Fights between the 

 Sword -Fiih and Thraiher as Allies, and the 

 Grampus, their common Enemy, who as natu- 

 rally encounter each other, when they meet in 

 the Sea, as do the Elephant and Rhinoceros at 

 Land. The Sword-Fifh gets underneath the 

 Grampus, and pricks him in the Belly, till he 

 fwims on the furface of the Water, and then the 

 Thrafher mounts upon his Back, and beats him 

 fharply with his Tail : In fliort, they are in a 

 ftate of perpetual War, I was once (in my paf- 

 fage from Nevis to Antigua) within lefs than an 

 hundred yards of a Fight, and do afTure you, 

 they caufed the Spray of the Sea to fly up very 

 violently all around them, and to the beft of 

 my difcernment, the Thrailier feemed to fight 



with 



