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solitary place, I saw a bee hive, composed of a piece of button wood, which was cut out of the woods full of bees. Dr. Williams, in his history of Vermont, (a work of great merit,) says, "From our earliest acquaintance with Lake Champlain, the honey bee was to be found in the open lands along those shores, at the distance of one hundred miles from the english or french settlements, and long before those settlements had begun to attend to the cultivation of this animal and from the first settlement of New-England hunting for their nests has been a favourite and profitable amusement." Upon the whole, although the balance of authority is greatly against the bee as an indigenous animal of North-America, yet I am by no means satisfied that the weight of reason is not in the other scale.

Quære? Would it not be well to import the stingless bee of Mexico, that makes the aromatic honey of Estabentun, and also the bee of the Niger, whose produce is so superior, both in delicacy and taste to the best honey of the south of France ?

NOTE 31.

I have made the number of serpents much too great. I do not believe there are twenty species in the whole United States,

Rattlesnakes are of two kinds: one considerably larger than the other. This serpent is never seen farther north than the mountains which surround Crown Point, in that direction. Henry saw one, two degrees farther north, to the northwest of French river, which discharges itself into Lake Huron. This circumstance was considered a very extraordinary one, and it greatly alarmed the superstitious fears of the indians. It is not true that the hog is invulnerable to the attacks of the rattlesnake. He fights it as he would any other animal, and, if wounded, invariably falls a victim. In Lowthorp's Abridgment of the Transactions of the Royal Society, (vol. 3.) a story is told of a rattlesnake, in Virginia, which had got into a place where there were pigs; two dogs were set upon the snake, and were mortally wounded; "the howling of the dogs gave notice to the sow, and made her come furiously bristling, and she run immediately into her den; but being likewise bit by the snake, she set up a terrible squeak, and run also into the river, and there died."

Dr. Barton says, (in opposition to the vulgar opinion,) that the crepitaculum does not give any certain indication of the reptile's age; for that, in general, very old rattlesnakes have very few bells, or rattles; and he asks, "Do the

"I once

young crotali, when alarmed or in danger, take shelter in the stomach (or asophagus) of both their parents, or the mother only " Carver says, killed a female that had seventy young ones in its belly; but those were perfectly formed, and I saw them just before retire to the mouth of their mother, as a place of security on my approach." Séveral intelligent persons say the same of the common viper, in England, and yet the London viper catchers assert that it never happens. In the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, "respectable testimony is adduced to establish similar occurrences. It is said that wild penny-royal, or dittany of Virginia, is fatal to this serpent, and that it never comes in places where it grows. See Lowthorp's Philosophical Transactions, vol. 2.

Van der Donk, in his account of the New Netherland, says, that there grows in New Netherland the snakeroot, which, as soon as the rattlesnake smells, he dies; that a large rattlesnake was found on Long Island, and some present took of that herb, and, after chewing it, fixed it on the end of a stick, and held it at some distance from the snake's nose, and that it no sooner inhaled the scent than it was seized with a fit of trembling, and died instantly; and that such was the rarity of the snake before his time, in 1655, that a man might go about into the fields and woods, and not see one in seven years; and that the indians extracted its four sharp teeth, and used them as a substitute for lancets. Both these accounts of the deleterious effects of pennyroyal and snakeroot upon the rattlesnake, are fabulous.

Some of the most respectable ancient, writers believed in the existence of a small kind of serpent, which moved forward and backward, and had two heads, one at each extremity. Galen and Ælian represented it as an undeniable fact; and Pliny says, “Geminum habet caput, tanquam parum esset uno ore effundi venenum." Linnæus has described this species of serpents as having rings on the body and tail, no scales, and a smooth, equal cylindrical body; the tail hardly to be distinguished from the head, and very obtuse. Dr. Bancroft, in his Essay on the Natural History of Guiana, observes, that it is said there are three kinds of double-headed snakes in Guiana. He saw but one species; it was twelve inches long; had very fine teeth, almost obscured by the gums; its eyes were hardly discoverable; and both ends have the same external appearance, from whence it has been thought to have two heads, although only one mouth is discoverable, which is small. From this it appears that those who believe in the reality of two heads, one at each extremity, labour under a mistake; and that their error has originated from the similarity of the head and tail, and the smallness of the animal. Herrera, in his History of America says, that in Chiapa he found a two-headed serpent, eighteen inches long,, in the form of a roman T, and very venomous: it not only kills, says he, by its bite, but if any tread upon

that part of the ground over which it has just gone, it proves fatal. Bancroft states, in a note to his work before referred to, that a similar kind of amphisbæna was found near a bay in Lake Champlain, in this state; but I shall give the account in his own words. "Since these sheets were sent to the press I have received a particular description of a monstrous amphisbæna, found near Lake Champlain, in North America, by an officer in the american service, who, with one of his majesty's draughts men, was, during the late war, sent to make a survey of that lake. They were previously informed by the indians of the existence of these serpents, one of which they killed near a bay in Lake Champlain, which, in the maps of that country, has been since called Double-Headed Snake Bay. This serpent was a small one of the kind, it being about fifteen inches in length, and largest near the middle, terminating in a slender tail. The body at the other end, divided into two necks of equal size, to each of which was joined a perfect head, with two eyes, a large mouth and throat, a forked tongue, with teeth of the same species with those of the rattlesnake. The colour of the heads was a dark brown, and the scales on the back and side were variegated with alternate spots of dark and reddish brown colours, in magnitude and disposition resembling those of the rattlesnake. This serpent was a perfect monster, of whose existence I should strongly doubt, did I not think the veracity of the gentleman from whom I have this information, and by whom it was actually killed, unquestionable."

The frontispiece of Bancroft's book contains a print of this serpent, and under it is inscribed,

“This snake was found near Lake Champlain, in the year 1761, by lieutenant Moses Park."

This account is thus confirmed by the concurrent testimony of Carver : "The two-headed snake. The only snake of this kind that was ever seen in America was found about the year 1762, near Lake Champlain, by mr. Park, a gentleman of New-England, and made a present to lord Amherst. It was about a foot long, and in shape like the common snake, but it was furnished with two heads exactly similar, which united at the neck."

As this account relates to the Natural History of this state, and the author is respectable, I have thought it sufficiently interesting to insert it with this interrogatory: Is there a bay on Lake Champlain which bears the name of DoubleHeaded Snake Bay?

Since writing the above I have seen a specimen of the false amphisbæna in Scudder's museum. It was presented to the proprietor of that establishment by dr. Mitchill, to whom it was given by dr. Ross, who procured it in JamaiIt is about eight inches long, and each extremity has the appearance of a

ca.

bead.

I have also seen in dr. Mitchill's possession a real amphisbæna, or coluber biceps, having two heads at one end of the body, diverging from the same vertebral column. It is between four and five inches long, and the colour is a light brown. It was presented to the doctor by John G. Bogert, esq. of this city, who procured it from captain Henry G. Hose, who brought this and two others of a similar kind from Toconroba, one of the Fejee islands, to this city.

Dr. Mitchill informs me that he has seen a coluber biceps in the possession of professor Walker, at Edinburgh; a second in Quebec, in the collection of general Davies; and a third was shown to him at Washington by president Jefferson; and from the frequency of their occurrence, the doctor is inclined to believe that this animal is not a lusus naturæ, but a regular production. If so, and his opinion is almost conclusive on such subjects, we must consider the real amphis¬ bæna, or coluber biceps, as a new and distinct genus of serpents.

NOTE 32.

This is probably the glycine apios, or wild potato, which is nearly as good as the common, and which was, when boiled, a favorite food of the indians.

The Jerusalem artichoke, or helianthus tuberosus, grows spontaneously over the country, is sometimes brought to our markets for sale, and is a wholesome, agreeable vegetable. This plant ought to be cultivated. It produces about four hundred and eighty bushels an acre. It flourishes in almost any soil, bringing. almost invariably, a certain crop, and it is also proof against the severest frosts. The bulb of arrowhead, or sagittaria sagittifolia, boiled, or roasted in hot ashes, was eat by our indians. It tasted nearly like potatoes. It is commonly an inch and a half long, and one inch and a half broad in the middle, is sometimes as large as a man's fist, and grows in low, muddy, and very wet ground. It composes a considerable part of the food of the chinese, and is cultivated by them. It ought to be carefully guarded against swine, who eagerly devour it. In a valley to the west of the Rocky Mountains, which extends seventy miles, it is found in great abundance, and is a principal article of trade between the inhabitants of that valley and those of the sea coast.

Our indians also made use of the root of a vegetable which they called tawhotawkin, or tuckah, and which, Kalm says, is the arum virginicum, or wake robin. When fresh it has a pungent taste, but when roasted it is like potatoes. It flourishes in moist grounds and swamps, and often grows to the thickness of a man's thigh, but is nearly extirpated by the hogs

They also eat the dried seeds of the orontium aquaticum, called by them tawkee; they were boiled in water, and eat like peas, or made into bread. This plant was plentiful in moist and low grounds. Whortleberries, or huckleberries, were dried by them and made into a dainty dish, by being mixed with fresh maize flour, and baked. They also gathered and dried hickory and black walnuts; took out the kernels and pounded them as fine as flour; mixed this substance with water, which took a milky colour, and was as sweet as milk.

The tuckahoe (or tawkee, as Kalm supposes) was probably a native of this state. The lycoperdon tuber of Linnæus, called truffles, grows here and in New Jersey, and we have a place called Tuckahoe. These tuberous productions are not the same. The indians made delicious bread from their farinaceous matter. According to Lewis and Clarke, the indians of Columbia river eat the roots of a species of thistle, fern, rush, liquorice, and a small cylindric root, resembling in flavour and consistency the sweet potato.

NOTE 33.

This production lias been used by the indians from time immemorial. In a curious book, entitled A Description of the English Province of Carolana, by the Spaniards called Florida, and by the French La Louisiane, etc. by Daniel Coxe, esq. printed, London, 1741, it is thus described: "besides, this country naturally affords another sort of excellent corn, which is the most like oats of any curopean grain, but longer and larger; and I have been assured by many very credible persons, who, out of curiosity, had divers ways prepared it, that it far exceeds our best oatmeal. This is not sown and cultivated by the indians, but grows spontaneously in marshy places, in and by the sides of rivers, like reeds or rushes. The indians, when it is ripe, take handfulls, shake them into their canoes; what escapes them falling into the water, without any further trouble produces the next year's crop." Hearne saw it as far north as Churchill river, near the 60th degree of north latitude. Ellis, in his account of A Voyage to Discover a North West passage, mentions, that there are great quantities of wild rice by the sides of the lakes and rivers which run into Hudson's Bay, between the 50th and 55th degrees of north latitude. On the 21st September, Pike stopped at a Sioux village, between Pepin and the falls of st. Anthony, and in about 44 degrees 30 minutes north latitude, and found it evacuated, all the indians having gone out to gather fols avoin; and he says, that the indian traders chiefly depend for their support upon wild oats, of which

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