that the drought had destroyed the leaves, and we could not, like the Indians, discover them by the stalks.

Most of the fruits of this country, such as they are, have been mentioned already. We found one in the southern part of the country resembling a cherry, except that the stone was soft; and another not unlike a pine-apple in appearance, but of a very disagreeable taste, which is well known in the East Indies, and is called by the Dutch Pyn Appel Boomen.

Of the quadrupeds, I have already mentioned the dog, and particularly described the kangaroo, and the animal of the opossum kind, resembling the phalanger of Buffon; to which I can add only one more, resembling a pole-cat, which the natives call Quoll: The back is brown, spotted with white, and the belly white unmixed. Several of our people said they had seen wolves; but perhaps, if we had not seen tracks that favoured the account, we might have thought them little more worthy of credit than he who reported that he had seen the devil.

Of batts, which hold a middle place between the beasts and the birds, we saw many kinds, particularly one which, as I have observed already, was larger than a partridge: We were not fortunate enough to take one either alive or dead, but it was supposed to be the same as Buffon has described by the name of Rouset or Rouget.

The sea and other water-fowl of this country, are gulls, shags, soland geese, or gannets, of two sorts, boobies, noddies, curlieus, ducks, pelicans of an enormous size, and many others. The land-birds, are crows, parrots, paroquets, cockatoos, and other birds of the same kind, of exquisite beauty; pigeons, doves, quails, bustards, herons, cranes, hawks, and eagles. The pigeons flew in numerous flocks, so that, notwithstanding their extreme shyness, our people frequently killed ten or twelve of them in a day: These birds are very beautiful, and crested very differently from any we had seen before.

Among other reptiles, here are serpents of various kinds, some noxious, and some harmless; scorpions, centipieds, and lizards. The insects are but few. The principal are the musquito and the ant. Of the ant there are several sorts; some are as green as a leaf, and live upon trees, where they build their nests of various sizes, between that of a man's head and his fist. These nests are of a very curious

curious structure: They are formed by bending down several of the leaves, each of which is as broad as a man's hand, and gluing the points of them together, so as to form a purse; the viscus used for this purpose is an animal juice, which Nature has enabled them to elaborate. Their method of first bending down the leaves, we had not an opportunity to observe; but we saw thousands uniting all their strength to hold them in this position, while other busy multitudes were employed within, in applying the gluten that was to prevent their returning back. To satisfy ourselves that the leaves were bent, and held down by the effort of these diminutive artificers, we disturbed them in their work, and as soon as they were driven from their station, the leaves on which they were employed sprung up with a force much greater than we could have thought them able to conquer by any combination of their strength. But though we gratified our curiosity at their expence, the injury did not go unrevenged; for thousands immediately threw themselves upon us, and gave us intolerable pain with their stings, especially those who took possession of our necks and our hair, from whence they were not easily driven The sting was scarcely less painful than that of a bee; but, except it was repeated, the pain did not last more than a minute.

Another sort are quite black, and their operations and manner of life are not less extraordinary. Their habitations are the inside of the branches of a tree, which they contrive to excavate by working out the pith almost to the extremity of the slenderest twig; the tree at the same time flourishing, as if it had no such inmate. When we first found the tree, we gathered some of the branches, and were scarcely less astonished than we should have been to find that we had prophaned a consecrated grove, where every tree, upon being wounded, gave signs of life; for we were instantly covered with legions of these animals, swarming from every broken bough, and inflicting their stings with incessant violence. They are mentioned by Rumphius in his Herbarium Amboinense, vol. ii. p. 257; but the tree in which he saw their dwelling is very different from that in which we found them.

A third kind we found nested in the root of a plant, which grows on the bark of trees in the manner of misletoe, and which they had perforated for that use. This root is

commonly

commonly as big as a large turnip, and sometimes much bigger: When we cut it, we found it intersected by innumerable winding passages, all filled with these animals, by which, however, the vegetation of the plant did not appear to have suffered any injury. We never cut one of these roots that was not inhabited, though some were not bigger than a hazle nut. The animals themselves are very small, not more than half as big as the common red ant in England. They had stings, but scarcely force enough to make them felt They had, however, a power of tormenting us in an equal, if not a greater degree; for the moment we handled the root, they swarmed from innumerable holes, and running about those parts of the body that were uncovered, produced a titillation more intolerable than pain, except it is increased to great violence. Rumphius has also given an account of this bulb and its inhabitants, vol. vi. p. 120, where he mentions another sort that are black.

We found a fourth kind, which are perfectly harmless, and almost exactly resemble the white ants of the East Indies: The architecture of these is still more curious than that of the others. They have houses of two sorts; one is suspended on the branches of trees, and the other erected upon the ground: Those upon the trees are about three or four times as big as a man's head, and are built of a brittle substance, which seems to consist of small parts of vegetables kneaded together with a glutinous matter, which their bodies probably supply. Upon breaking this crust, innumerable cells, swarming with inhabitants, appear in a great variety of winding directions, all communicating with each other, and with several apertures that lead to other nests upon the same tree; they have also one large avenue, or covered way, leading to the ground, and carried on under it to the other nest or house that is constructed there. This house is generally at the root of a tree, but not of that upon which their other dwellings are constructed: It is formed like an irregularly sided cone, and sometimes is more than six feet high, and nearly as much in diameter. Some are smaller, and these are generally flat-sided, and very much resemble in figure the stones which are seen in many parts of England, and supposed to be the remains of druidical antiquity. The outside of these is of well-tempered clay, about two inches thick; and within are the cells, which have no open

ing outwards, but communicate only with the subterranean way to the houses on the tree, and to the tree near which they are constructed, where they ascend up the root, and so up the trunk and branches, under covered ways of the same kind as those by which they descended from their other dwellings. To these structures on the ground they probably retire in the winter, or rainy seasons, as they are. proof against any wet that can fall, which those in the tree, though generally constructed under some overhanging branch, from the nature and thinness of their crust or wall, cannot be.

The

2 There are upwards of twenty species of ants known, which differ from one another in several respects, but more especially in the materials and construction of their habitations. Some employ earth, others the leaves and bark of trees, and others again prefer straw; whilst another species, as is mentioned above, occupy the central parts of trees. Their manners too are very different, though all, in various degrees, no doubt, manifest very remarkable instinctive wisdom, and, if the expression be allowable, even acquired knowledge. The reader who is desirous of minute and most instructive information on the subject of these sagacious animals, will do well to consult the Edinburgh Review, vol. xx. page 148, &c. where an account is given of Mr Huber's observations and experiments respecting them. A single extract from the Review may prove interesting to the reader who has not the convenience of referring to the volume. "The accounts of these same animals, in other climates, sufficiently shew what formidable power they acquire when the efforts of numbers are com bined. Mr Malovat mentions, in his account of his travels through the forest of Guyana, his arriving at a savannah, extending in a level plain beyond the visible horizon, and in which he beheld a structure that ap peared to have been raised by human industry. M. de Prefontaine, who accompanied him in the expedition, informed him that it was an ant-hill, which they could not approach without danger of being devoured. They passed some of the paths frequented by the labourers, which belonged to a very large species of black ants. The nest they had constructed, which had the form of a truncated pyramid, appeared to be from fifteen to twenty feet in height, on a base of thirty or forty feet. He was told that when the new settlers, in their attempt to clear the country, happened to meet with any of these fortresses, they were obliged to abandon the spot, unless they could muster sufficient forces to lay regular siege to the ene my. This they did by digging a circular trench all round the nest, and filling it with a large quantity of dried wood, to the whole of which they fire at the same time, by lighting it in different parts all round the circumference. While the entrenchments are blazing, the edifice may be destroyed by firing at it with cannon; and the ants being by this means dispersed, have no avenue for escape except through the flames, in which they perish." It might be worthy the attention of philosophers to enquire, what general purposes in the economy of Nature these wonder

working

The sea in this country is much more liberal of food to the inhabitants than the land; and though fish is not quite so plenty here as they generally are in higher latitudes, yet we seldom hauled the seine without taking from fifty to two hundred weight. They are of various sorts; but, except the mullet, and some of the shell-fish, none of them are known in Europe: Most of them are palatable, and some are very delicious. Upon the shoals and reef there are incredible numbers of the finest green turtle in the world, and oysters of various kinds, particularly the rockoyster and the pearl-oyster. The gigantic cockles have been mentioned already; besides which, there are seacrayfish, or lobsters, and crabs: Of these, however, we saw only the shells. In the rivers and salt creeks there are aligators.

The only person who has hitherto given any account of this country or its inhabitants is Dampier, and though he is, in general, a writer of credit, yet in many particulars he is mistaken. The people whom he saw were indeed inhabitants of a part of the coast very distant from that which we visited; but we also saw inhabitants upon parts of the coast very distant from each other, and there being a perfect uniformity in person and customs among them all, it is reasonable to conclude, that distance in another direction has not considerably broken it.

The number of inhabitants in this country appears to be very small in proportion to its extent. We never saw so many as thirty of them together but once, and that was at Botany Bay, when men, women, and children, assembled upon a rock to see the ship pass by: When they manifestly formed a resolution to engage us, they never could muster above fourteen or fifteen fighting men; and we never saw a number of their sheds or houses together that

could

working animals accomplish. The labours of certain other creatures, there is every reason to believe, are destined to raise up habitable islands in various parts of the ocean. May not these small architects be employed in fitting certain soils for the growth of vegetable substances? There seems, indeed, to exist in our world a living spirit, or principle, continually operating in the production of creatures, and places suitable for them, to compensate the loss of those which an irrevocable law of the great Fabricator has doomed to successive destruction, as if He chose to manifest the glory of His wisdom and power, by creating new existences, rather than by preserving the old ones.-E.