DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOQICAL CLUB. 11 



and have a soft melancholic tone or cooing as the Englishmen 

 call it. As soon as the sun has set in this country, happening 

 here between seven and eight in the month of May, there ap- 

 pears every evening and all night in the summer a great many 

 fire flies, as they are called, hovering in the air, both in the 

 woods and in the field, nay, about the houses, too; they look 

 like sparks of fire out of a chimney, causing a singular glisten- 

 ing in the dark. These mischievous insects are to appearance 

 like the Spanish Flys, though the shell covering the wings is 

 brown and they have their light below their small bodies that 

 so to say is glistening every time they breathe. Between whiles 

 it goes out, so if one wants to follow up such a fly by its flying, 

 one will be sure to lose it in the dark and only find it again, at 

 a guess, by means of the glistening. 



May 16. I caught a ground squirrel or Ground hog, which 

 is a kind of squirrel that makes its nest in the ground, is larger 

 than a rat, and to color it is like a badger. It is very clumsy 

 and awkward when it is to climb a tree and from that cause is 

 easily caught. 



May 19. I travelled to Philadelphia which is the capital of 

 Pennsylvania and which is an exceedingly nice and beautiful 

 City, about as large as Westeras [in Sweden] but with such 

 regular streets and such magnificent houses that one must be 

 astounded how from the year 1683, when it was founded, it has 

 been possible to attain the riches and the splendor it now has. 



May 23. Shortly after my return from Philadelphia did I 

 find a tortoise in the woods adjacent to Christina; it was of the 

 size of a fist. When caught it enclosed itself within its beauti- 

 ful house, both with head, feet and tail, and in doing it a slight 

 hissing was perceptible; every opening was so closely shut that 

 it was beyond my power to break the shell open, not even by 

 means of a knife. It does not venture a peep as long as it is 

 being carried about nor afterward until thinking everything safe 

 around it. This species of turtle is found only in the woods, 

 but not anywhere else, and is used for food both by the Indians 

 and Christians. According to my taste it has a delicious and 

 subtle flavor, especially the liver prepared in the way used by 

 the Indians who roast it in hot ashes it is most to my liking, 

 though the method spoils the showy shell. 



