DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 15 



where the Wild Cat has passed. A person unacquainted with 

 the nature of this animal is easily fooled by it, for as this cat is 

 never in a hurry to shun human beings, one can go close up to 

 it and when the Wild Cat considers the distance convenient, it 

 stops for awhile, raising its tail in the air and fouling the person 

 and bespattering him all over, though he be twenty or thirty 

 steps away from the cat. This Spirit is so extreme that one 

 may be choked and the troublesome balsam can afterwards in 

 no wise be effaced of the clothes. 



July 29, 1714- I caught a Golden-crested Wren in my 

 garden. It is my belief that this bird is the prettiest and most 

 diminutive among all flying animals clothed with feathers. In 

 length it is not more than half a finger. It is golden-colored on 

 the back but under the beak, that is long and pointed, the one 

 that is he has an indescribable beauteous spot that is glistening 

 like a sparkling, burning coal and is of a so vivacious and 

 sprightly blush that I am sure it cannot by any painter be pic- 

 tured by any color that is suflBciently high. This little bird 

 builds its nest on the branches of the tallest oaks. It fastens 

 there its mellow material and makes it like a small, silk purse, 

 where it lays its eggs, in size resembling small white peas. By 

 Englishmen it is called a Humming Bird, for the buzz caused 

 by its little wings just alike a gad-fly. It feeds barely on the 

 sweetish juice it draws out of lilies and other flowers; into those 

 it nibbles with its long beak and tongue and in doing that it 

 constantly flaps the wings, that it is something very rare to find 

 it perching quietly. 



February 18, 1715. We saw for the first time in that year 

 the pretty little spring flowers, as for instance Hepatica nobilis, 

 and several other species, both blue and white. 



May 13. I made my first observation of the most peculiar 

 insects I believe to exist the whole world over, which have not 

 for fifteen years been seen in this country up to this year and 

 in this month. In English it is called Locusts or Locustae, but 

 it has absolutely no resemblance whatever to grasshoppers. 



[After a two-page description of their transformation, he says:] 

 When the heat is most intense in the day they resort in an 

 enormous innumerableness to every tree, tuning like crickets so 



