NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 153 



Van der Donk, before quoted, says, that the Indians plant maize, and different kinds of 

 beans, (which, they state, came to them from the southern Indians,) pompions, and 

 squashes, and that their country abounds with mulberries of a superior quality, a great 

 variety of plumbs, wild cherries, juniper berries, small apples of different kinds, hazle 

 nuts, black currants, gooseberries, blue West-India figs, whortleberries, different kinds of 

 blackberries, and one kind of as excellent a quality as in Holland, barberries, cranberries, 

 artichokes, which grow under ground, aart-aackers, or espea d'Elruffer, (probably truffles,) 

 easter beans, wild onions, and garlic. That in spring and autumn the water fowl are so 

 numerous that the inhabitants in the vicinity of the waters are often deprived of sleep by 

 their noise ; that the swan is most numerous ; that there are three kinds of geese ; that 

 the fishes are in the greatest plenty : streaked basse, shad, sturgeon, sea basse, black fish, 

 herring, &c. and shell-fish of all kinds ; that the best oysters are sold from four to six 

 stivers a hundred ; that the number of deer is incredible ; and that eighty thousand 

 beavers are annually killed in those parts, exclusive of elands, (elks,) bears, otters, and 

 deer, and yet their numbers do not appear to be diminished. 



He further says, that when the Indians are disposed to treat you in an extraordinary 

 manner, they serve you with the tail of a beaver, the head of a streaked basse, roasted 

 maize, or chesnuts beaten into flour, boiled with the fattest meat. 



NOTE C C. 



The appearance of fish in waters which have no communication with other waters has 

 perplexed naturalists. It is extraordinary that perch should have appeared in all the 

 lakes of Ireland, and in the Shannon, at the same time, about forty years ago. If a 

 heron (says Daniel's Rural Sports, vol 2.) has devoured the ova of a pike, and after- 

 wards ejected them while feeding in a pond where there were none before, it is highly 

 probable they may be produced from this origin, in the same way as the seeds of plants 

 are known to be disseminated. Gmelin observes, that the duck kind swallow the eggs 

 of fishes, that some of these eggs go down and come out of their bodies unhurt, and so 

 are propagated. Adanson observed, in Africa, several small fishes in morasses formed 

 by rain water, which, by their lively red colour, appeared to be roaches. The water 



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