280 Caleb Alwatcr on the Winds of the West. 



and other vegetable matter in summer, and the cockle bur, 

 and the balls of button-wood, or, as by a perversion of lan- 

 guage, it is called in this country sycamore.* But this bird 

 may find its favourite food as well east as west of the Allegha- 

 nies. The grasses and trees alluded to, flourish as 1 have 

 observed in forty-five degrees of north latitude, and I am 

 credibly informed that they are abundant as far north as 

 Qjiebec, and even around Hudson's Bay. Wherever waters 

 run and trees grow on their banks, (if low and wet,) on the 

 American continent, even as high as eighty degrees of north 

 latitude, there the paroquet may find its food in abundance. 



Another fact tending to establish the same point is, that the 

 reed cane, before this country was much settled, grew in a 

 higher latitude by several degrees on this than it did on the 

 other side of the Alleghany mountains. It has indeed been 

 said, that this cane was never found north of the Ohio, nor 

 above the mouth of the Big Sandy River, which empties into 

 the Ohio, on the line which separates Virginia and Kentucky. 

 This however is incorrect ; for within a few years it was grow- 

 ing in abundance at Miller's Bottom, twenty-six miles above 

 the mouth of Big Sandy. It grew at Lancaster, on the Hock* 

 hocking, northward of the mouth of the Big Sandy, in a direct 

 line, at least one hundred and fifty miles, and it now grows on 

 the Whetstone branch of the Scioto, more than two degrees of 

 latitude above the lowest bend of the Ohio, which is at the 

 mouth of the Big Sandy. Before the white people settled 

 there, I have every reason to believe, that the cane grew in 

 great plenty at Delaware, where there are more signs of buF- 

 faloes than at any other place within my knowledge. It has 

 been conjectured, that the seed of the cane was brought down 

 and scattered by the Big Sandy ; but granting this, in what way 

 could that stream carry this seed up the Hockhocking and 

 Scioto to their sources ? to places several hundred feet above 

 the highest freshes ever known in this country ? With a know- 

 ledge of these facts, cast your eye at the map of Ohio. Proofs 



* Genus, platanus — species, accidenialiSt popular naiqe, sycjimore, or hutto* 

 wood. 



