220 LAWSON'S HISTORY 



"What harm there is in this brittle ware I can not 

 tell, but I never knew any body hurt by them. 



The egg or chicken snake is so called because 

 it is frequent about the hen yard and eats eggs 

 and chickens, they are of a dusky soot color, and 

 will roll themselves round and stick eighteen or 

 twenty feet high by the side of a smoothed bark 

 pine, where there is no manner of hold, and there 

 sun themselves, and sleep all the sunny part of 

 the day. There is no great matter of poison in 

 them. 



The wood worms are of a copper shining color, 

 scarce so thick as your little finger ; are often 

 found in rotten trees. They are accounted veno- 

 mous in case they bite, though I never knew any- 

 thing hurt by them. They never exceed four or 

 five inches in length. 



The reptiles, or smaller insects are too numer- 

 ous to relate here, this country affording innu- 

 merable quantities thereof; as the flying stags, 

 with horns, beetles, butterflies, grasshoppers, lo- 

 cust, and several hundreds of uncouth shapes, 

 which in the summer season are discovered here 

 in Carolina, the description of which requires a 

 large volume, which is not my intent at present, 

 besides, what the mountainous part of this land 

 may hereafter lay open to our view, time and indus- 

 try will discover, for we that have settled but a small 

 share of this large province, cannot imagine, but 

 there will be a great number of discoveries made 

 by those that shall come hereafter into the back 



