|kfo=(£utrtantis Parities. 39 



I fhall call them into this form: 1. Birds. 2. Beafts. 3. 

 Fifties. 4. Serpents and Infedls. 5. Plants, of thefe, 1. 

 fuch Plants as are common with us, 2. of fuch Plants as 

 are proper to the country, 3. of fuch Plants as are proper 

 to the Country and have no name known to us, 4. of fuch 

 Plants as have fprung up fince the EngliJJi Planted and 

 kept Cattle there; 5. of fuch Garden Herbs (amongft us) 

 as do thrive there and of fuch as do not. 6. Of Stones, 

 Minerals, Metals, and Earths. 



Firft, Of Birds. 1 



The Humming Bird. 



THe Humming Bird, the leaft of all Birds, little bigger 

 than a Dor, of variable glittering Colours, they feed 

 upon Honey, which they fuck out of Bloffoms [7] and 

 Flowers with their long Needle-like Bills; they fleep all 

 Winter, and are not to be feen till the Spring, at which 

 time they breed in little Nefts, made up like a bottom of 

 foft, Silk-like matter, their Eggs no bigger than a white 

 Peafe, they hatch three or four at a time, and are proper 

 to this Country. 



1 There is a much fuller account — to be noticed again — of our birds, in the 

 Voyages, pp. 95-103. Wood's (N. E. Prospect, chap, viii.) is also curious. In 

 the notes which immediately follow, on the birds, beasts, fishes, and reptiles, the 

 oldest writers on our natural history will be found often to explain or illustrate 

 each other. 



