work. I have seen a thousand Gophers, and never found a particle of earth in these receptacles. If you will not take my authority respecting this vastly important point in natural history, go and catch another Gopher, and the evidence of your own eyes will satisfy you.

Like other plunderers, Gophers do most of their work in the night. They are very injurious to gardens. They cut off the roots of plants, so that in the morning, the gardener sees them standing as fresh as ever, but when the sun rises they wilt and die. When I lived at

the Gophers were so mischievous, that owners of gardens were obliged to offer a small premium for their heads, and thousands were destroyed in consequence. Whether the Gopher is carnivorous or frugivorous does not appear. Common opinion inclines to the latter supposition. But as the common mole has been proved to be carnivorous, and as he only removes the roots of plants to get at earth worms, &c. it is probable that the Gopher resembles him in his manner of feeding, as well as in all the rest of his habits.

There is another Gopher at work, and I will treat him as I treated the first. No; it is not a Gopher. It is a Mole that is by no means common, and which Godman and Say know nothing of. It is of the same size as the Gopher, and its color is grass green. Its pelagewas ever any thing so beautiful. No velvet, no silk, should be named in the same day. Go thy ways, Green Mole; I would not pick a hole in a coat like thine for a beaver-skin.

Go not near that stump. That reptile asleep on it is a copperhead; the most venomous, the most hideous, the most depraved, the most detestable of all God's creatures. Now he wakes. He gathers himself sluggishly into his coil, which he intends shall be a mortal coil for one of us. He has not half the generosity of the rattlesnake, for he gives no warning before he strikes; nor half the courage, for he will not maintain his ground, if he can leave it. See how his head flattens!

how his skin becomes darker! Kill him, lest he bite some other. Now we are speaking of snakes, I will tell you a strange story, and you may believe it or not, as you please. I was at the portage between the Fox and Ouisconsin rivers, about ten years ago, and slept at the house of Hypolite Grignon, a Winnebago half-breed and a trader. Speaking of snakes, he told me that he had once seen a flying serpent, five feet long, whose wings resembled the wings of a bat. This anomaly in the order of nature attacked him on the wing, and he killed it. Being little curious in such matters, as few Indian traders are, he left the animal to decay where it fell.

Though I thought Grignon lied, I did not tell him so, but I dismissed the matter from my mind, and should probably never have thought of it again, but for a singular corroboration of the story. Six years after this, I became acquainted with another trader, by name De Reinville, who lived six hundred miles from Grignon. They had never seen or held any communication with each other, as De Reinville said, and both were men of good character. Speaking again of natural history, De Reinville, without any previous mention of Grignon's story on my part, said that he also had killed a flying serpent, which he described precisely as the other had done. The two stories were identical in every particular.

We have ridden, reader, on airy horses, into the prairies, and have shown you every thing I know about our rare beasts" that I do not remember to have seen in print. We will, now if you please, go back to Boston, by the same speedy conveyance, and deposite our notes in the counting-room which pertaineth to the New-England Magazine.

THE NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY QUESTION.

THIS is a question, which, for the last four years, has engrossed the attention of many persons, particularly of those residing in the states of Maine and Massachusetts, which are directly interested in the result. It may be supposed that so much has been written and said on this subject, that little more can be added to advantage. The writer of this is well aware of the full strength of this observation; but he must be allowed to say, with great respect, however, for many of those who have chosen to discuss the subject, that much has been advanced to little advantage.

The proof of this is, that there are so few men of either of the parties concerned, who are not fully satisfied as to the justice of the claim of their respective nations, and who are not willing to go all lengths in support of that claim. The writers on each side address themselves to the passions of the multitude, and not to the understanding; they hold up all the arguments tending to show the truth of one side of the question, and treat every thing offered in favor of the contrary side, with contempt and ridicule. My object in writing this is to give a fair and candid representation of the subject, without partiality for the arguments of any of the disputants.

In the consideration of most subjects it is generally little advantageous to exhaust all the details of them; and this general observation is pre-eminently applicable to this. To be made acquainted with all the ancient grants and treaties which have relation to the land in question, would be of little moment. The treaty of 1783 between the United States and Great-Britain, says in substance, that the line dividing the dominions of the two countries shall extend from the mouth of the river St. Croix to its source, thence north to the highlands, separating the waters flowing into the river St. Lawrence from those flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, thence along those highlands to the north-westernmost head of Connecticut river, &c.*

A question arises. Did the persons who negociated the treaty of 1783, know of any highlands in the sense in which the word highlands is commonly understood, in or about what is now called the state of Maine? Certainly not. The Commissioners, appointed under the treaty, to survey and mark the boundary, did not even find a river known by the name of St. Croix. They found a river near where they supposed the line separating the dominions of the two countries should pass, and gave it this name. Now, if the coast was so little known, it

*The north-west angle of Nova Scotia I shall say nothing about. It is determined by the highlands and not the highlands by the angle, this angle being where the line running north strikes the highlands.

would be the height of folly to believe that the negotiators of the treaty were acquainted with the interior of a thick and tangled forest, extending from the coast of Maine more than three hundred miles to the river St. Lawrence.

What then did they mean by highlands ?-Highlands separating the waters flowing into the St. Lawrence from those flowing into the Atlantic ocean? This is the very hinge of the controversy. They knew, undoubtedly, that the coast of Maine ran in a direction nearly parallel to the river St. Lawrence; that large rivers flowed into the ocean on the coast of Maine and New-Brunswick (then a part of Nova Scotia,) and other rivers into the St. Lawrence; and they knew, from common observation, that the land at the sources of rivers was higher than at their mouths. The word highlands then, in the sense here used, means, the lands at the sources of the rivers. No consequence if it should happen to be mountainous or boggy. They could not use the word in any other sense; for they did not know of the existence of any other kind of highlands in or about Maine; if they had, the treaty would have been wholly indefinite in this respect. It would had no more meaning than a treaty at present would have, ceding to the United States or any other nation that part of New-Holland lying north of a ridge of highlands running westerly from some point 200 miles from Botany Bay. No highlands were known to exist in the former case, more than any are known to exist in the one just supposed. The argument, therefore, advanced by Great-Britain, that there are no highlands on the line claimed by the United States, has no force.

have

It may now be observed, that none of the waters which are spoken of in the treaty flow directly into the Atlantic. They first flow into small rivers, then into large ones, and then again into bays before reaching the ocean. Thus the Connecticut flows into the bay called Long Island Sound; the Androscoggin and Kennebec into the bay of Sagadahoc; the Penobscot into Penobscot bay; and the St. John into the bay of Fundy. The argument, therefore, held up by the British Government that the St. John is not one of the rivers spoken of in the treaty, because it flows into a bay, is wholly groundless.* The meaning of the expression, "waters flowing into the Atlantic ocean," is plainly, waters which ultimately reach the Atlantic ocean.

Another thing remains to be considered: Does the expression "highlands separating the waters flowing into the river St. Lawrence from those flowing into the Atlantic ocean," mean highlands immediately or mediately separating them? The former is without doubt the sense in which the expression is to be taken; for, at the time of the formation of the treaty, no one knew that a dozen ranges of highlands mediately separating the two waters did not extend along the peninsula, in a direction north-easterly and south-westerly; and that a dozen rivers did not run in the same direction between them, and afterwards run southerly into the ocean (separate or united) as the St. John is found to do. Therefore, if the expression should be taken in the latter sense, the treaty could have no definite meaning in this respect;

A glance at the map of the disputed territory will show how this argument if it could be admitted would tend to strengthen their side of the question; but as the argument is shown inadmissible, it is unnecessary to enlarge on this point.

in this case either of the highland ranges might be taken for the one in question.

My reasoning will appear perfectly plain, if we imagine a dozen rivers running at a little distance from the St. John; parallel to it, at least in the upper part of their courses, and each running between two highland ranges as this does.

The negociators of the treaty were in possession of means to make this line definite; they must have been extremely blind not to have done so; they have done so in this respect undeniably; the treaty is too plain to be misunderstood. It will be seen also by attention to what has been said, that the manner, in which the word highlands is to be understood, necessarily precludes the idea of more than one range; every point immediately dividing waters flowing into the St. Lawrence from those flowing into the Atlantic being a point in this range.

These preliminary points being fixed, we have but to cast our eyes on a map of Maine to discover the true line. The line contended for by the United States, passes along the highlands immediately separating the waters flowing into the St. Lawrence from those flowing into the Atlantic ocean; and this, according to what has been said, is the true line. The line contended for by the British nation, passes over the highlands separating the waters of the river St. John from others flowing also into the Atlantic. The arbitration of the king of Holland will be despatched by saying, that he has not decided what has been referred to him. It may not, however, be out of place to observe here, in passing, that the highlands designated by him as the dividing line of the dominions of the two countries, are so situated that this decision would secure to the one all that it desired with regard to the country in dispute,—an uninterrupted mail route from Frederickton to Quebec.

But there is another thing in relation to this question of boundary which it may be well to discuss. The right of the United States, as one party, to permit a friendly sovereign or state to decide this question. It has been urged by those who supposed the rights of the state of Maine to be violated, that if the decision of the friendly sovereign or state should be in favor of Great-Britain, it amounted to the same thing as ceding a portion of the state, for which, by the Constitution of the United States, no authority is given. On the other hand it has been said, that the power of settling boundaries, though not expressed, is implied in the Constitution; since, if the United States should not possess this right, any state would virtually have the power of declaring war, or of estranging itself from the union; a power which no single state possesses; for, if the boundary of any state should be in dispute, and this state should refuse to give the General Government the power to settle it, (it not being contended that any state has this power) and should extend its jurisdiction by violence over the territory in dispute, it would cause a war; in which case the United States must either sustain it or suffer it to be conquered.

This last general reasoning appears to us satisfactory. But there is a still stronger argument which may be advanced in support of a like opinion. It is this; when Maine was admitted into the Union, the General Government gave it jurisdiction over such a portion of territory as it (the General Government) chose; and it neither gave nor could

give, consistent with treaties then existing, a jurisdiction over the land in dispute; but gave it jurisdiction over a territory, the boundaries of which on one side it implicitly reserved to itself the power to settle; and when and how the state of Maine acquired the right of settling the boundary itself, or of refusing to allow the United States to do so, is not apparent. The attempt therefore to extend its government farther than the articles of its admission into the Union would allow ; the often repeated intention of demanding of the General Government remuneration for any land ceded away; and the threat of not abiding by any decision which may not give to her her full claim, cannot be considered as warranted by a correct view of the Constitution of the United States, nor of the manner in which she was admitted into the Union.

The question has often been asked: Will Congress consider the recommendation of the king of Holland as a final decision of the question? Ought Congress to do so? This last question will be considered. If the land belongs to the United States, it would be doing ourselves injustice to be governed by this recommendation; if it belongs to Great-Britain, it would be doing that nation injustice to deprive her of five or six thousand square miles of territory. Again, the question referred has not been decided; the stipulations of the treaty of 1815 have not yet been carried into effect; and good faith on the part of the United States towards the state of Maine requires it to exert itself to have them carried into effect, into immediate effect; and the only proper way to have the question decided, is to refer it to some other friendly sovereign or state, since the king of the Netherlands, or more properly the king of Holland, has neglected to do that favor.

The writer of this has endeavored to give the subject all the plainness of which it was susceptible, and believes that he has advanced arguments in relation to the subject which cannot be controverted. LEON.

DRAMATIC REMINISCENCES.

NO. II.

A FEW days after the opening of the session of the Legislature, in January, 1792, Mr. Tudor, one of the representatives from Boston, called the attention of the House of Representatives to the subject, which his constituents had committed to him by special instruction. After stating the reasons, which had induced him thus early to rise, he read the law prohibiting theatrical entertainments, and moved that a committee be appointed to consider the expediency of bringing in a bill to repeal it. No person rose to speak on the motion; the question was called for, and decided in the negative, thirty-seven to sixty-nine. On the speaker's declaring the vote in the negative, Mr. Gardiner, of Hallowell, moved for a reconsideration. His motion was advocated by Messrs. Widgery, Breck, and Jarvis. The question of reconsideration was finally carried, seventy-one to thirty-three, and the subject committed to Messrs. Gardiner, Greenleaf, Hichborn, Bowers, Flagg, Washburn, and Kingley. A remonstrance against the repeal had been