employed in the necessary business of the ships, which was the capital object, as the season was advancing very fast, and the success of the voyage depended upon their diligence and alacrity in expediting the various tasks assigned to them.  Hence it happened, that excursions of every kind, either on the land, or by water, were never attempted.  And as we lay in a cove on an island, no other animals were ever seen alive in the woods there, than two or three racoons, martins, and squirrels.  Besides these, some of our people who, one day, landed on the continent, near the S.E. side of the entrance of the sound, observed the prints of a bear’s feet near the shore.  The account, therefore, that we can give of the quadrupeds, is taken from the skins which the natives brought to sell; and these were often so mutilated with respect to the distinguishing parts, such as the paws, tails, and heads, that it was impossible even to guess at the animals to whom they belonged, though others were so perfect, or at least so well known, that they left no room to doubt about them.

Of these the most common were bears, deer, foxes, and wolves.  The bear-skins were in great numbers, few of them very large, but, in general, of a shining black colour.  The deer-skins were scarcer, and they seem to belong to that sort called the fallow-deer by the historians of Carolina, though Mr Pennant thinks it quite a different species from, ours, and distinguishes it by the name of Virginian deer.[1] The foxes are in great plenty, and of several varieties, some of their skins being quite yellow, with a black tip to the tail, others of a deep or reddish yellow, intermixed with black, and a third sort of a whitish grey or ash-colour, also intermixed with black.  Our people used to apply the name of fox or wolf indiscriminately, when the skins were so mutilated as to leave room for a doubt.  But we got, at last, an entire wolf’s skin with the head on, and it was grey.  Besides the common sort of martin, the pine-martin is also here, and another, whose skin is of a lighter brown colour than either, with coarser hair, but is not so common, and is, perhaps, only a mere variety arising from age, or some other accidental circumstance.  The ermine is also found at this place, but is rare and small, nor is the hair remarkably fine, though the animal appeared to be perfectly white, except an inch or more at the tip of the tail.  The racoons and squirrels are of the common sort; but the latter is rather smaller than ours, and has a deeper rusty colour running along the back.

[Footnote 1:  See Virginian deer.  Pennant’s Hist.  Quad. vol. i.  No. 46, and Arctic Zool.  No.6.]