200 
TRAVELS 
17 Q 1 , out of eighteen thoufand feven hundred and fixty who died, 
thirty-feven fuffered under the hands of the executioner ; and at 
Naples and in Sicily, fix hundred murders are fuppofed to be per¬ 
petrated one year with another in a population of five millions. 
From the year 1749 to the year 17/3, there were bom in Aland 
one hundred and nineteen illegitimate children; from 1774 to 
• 1790 , the number of thefe was one hundred and twenty-fix ; 
which is in the proportion, for the firfi: twenty-five years, of one 
baftard child to eighty-three legitimate children; and for the fol¬ 
lowing fixteen years, of one to fifty-three. The latter proportion, 
however, is in fome meafure a proof of an increafe of moral de¬ 
pravity ; though it be trifling when compared wfith other places, 
fuch as Stockholm and Abo, where one-fixth part of the children 
born are illegitimate ; and if we take the births through Sweden 
we fhall find the proportion to be one to forty-five. 
The people of Aland are far from being fuperftitious; but, for 
what reafon I know not, they are accufed of being of a litigious 
difpofition. 
No bears or fquirrels are to be found in thefe iflands ; and the 
Elk, w'hich formerly was uncommonly numerous, is now no 
longer feen in them. The animals chiefly found are w T olves, 
(which are faid to crofs the fea from Finland, when it has hap¬ 
pened to be frozen over) foxes, martens, hares, ermines, bats, 
moles, rats, mice, &c. ; otters are but rarely met with : on the 
coafi: are found feals, &c. 
Of birds there are above a hundred different fpecies found in 
thefe. 
