14 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



fat is dripping. This is then collected to be kept and causes an 

 incredible relief if rubbed in for dry aches, pains in the joints 

 or in the back for gouty twinges. 



November 6. I saw a flying squirrel. This creature is scarcely 

 bigger than a good-sized rat, but is very pretty and soon tamed, 

 has its nest in hollow oaks and flutters from one tree to another. 

 It is steering by means of the tail which is fiat, thin and broad. 

 The wings consist only of a loose skin going from the body to 

 the end of the claws of the fore feet. This is spread out in 

 fluttering but is contracted and folded again when the animal 

 wants to walk. In flight it always goes in curves. In this way 

 it sets out from one tree and makes then constantly a curve to- 

 ward the earth and thereupon quickly upwards again to the 

 tree it had designed, though it be hundred ells from thence. It 

 is gray-colored on the back but white beneath the belly. 



July 13, 1713. Did I shoot a White-headed Eagle. This 

 species of Eagle is the very biggest and is hardly to be found in 

 other countries. In the London Tower I saw certainly one of 

 this species but it had also come from America and was a 

 peculiar rarity, presented to her Majesty, Queen Anna. This 

 kind of an Eagle is grayish all over the body, but the head and 

 the tail are wholly white, the eyes are yellow and the look is 

 grim, otherwise it is not so very destroying, but when it can 

 come at any water-fowl, such ones as are shooten by the com- 

 mon people, it comes forward and hovers about boldly, in order 

 to secure its share. 



November 25. I did for the first time see an American pole- 

 cat, that the Swedes in Pennsylvania call Wild Cat. It is the 

 most badly stinking animal amongst all kinds of quadrupeds. 

 It has its haunts in the woods, but resorts in the nights toward 

 the houses to steal hens. It is of the size of a young fox. The 

 hairs are black except on the head, where on both sides of the 

 eyes white stripes are running downward to the tail. It has 

 small eyes and a short-legged body with an ugly, long-haired 

 tail, more like that of a Lapp-dog than a cat's. 



Wherever this animal goes it leaves behind a smell so intense 

 as Spirit of Salt of Ammoniac of a power that it seems to be in- 

 veterate and just as if it was stagnant in the air over the spot 



