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.]

We were clear as to the existence of all the animals already
mentioned, but there are two others besides, which we could not
distinguish with sufficient certainty. Of the first of these we saw
none of the skins, but what were dressed or tanned like leather. The
natives wear them on some occasions; and from the size as well as
the thickness, they were generally concluded to belong to the elk, or
mouse-deer, though some of them perhaps might belong to the buffalo.
The other animal, which seems by no means rare, was guessed to be a
species of the wild cat or lynx. The length of the skins, without the
head, which none of them had, was about two feet two inches. They are
covered with a very fine wool or fur, of a very light-brown or whitish
yellow colour, intermixed with long hairs, which on the back, where
they are shortest, are blackish; on the sides, where they are longer,
of a silver white; and on the