tsman. And though some of these
names may seem frightful to the English, who hear not of them in their
own country, yet they are not so there, for all these creatures ever
fly from the face of man, doing no damage but to the cattle and hogs,
which the Indians never troubled themselves about.

Here I cannot omit a strange rarity in the female opossum, which I
myself have seen. They have a false belly, or loose skin quite over the
belly; this never sticks to the flesh of the belly, but may be looked
into at all times, after they have been concerned in procreation. In the
hinderpart of this is an aperture big enough for a small hand to pass
into: hither the young ones, after they are full haired, and strong
enough to run about, do fly whenever any danger appears, or when they go
to rest or suck. This they continue till they have learned to live
without the dam: but what is yet stranger, the young ones are bred in
this false belly without ever being within the true one. They are formed
at the teat, and there they grow for several weeks together into perfect
shape, becoming visibly larger, till at last they get strength, sight
and hair; and then they drop off and rest in this false belly, going in
and out at pleasure. I have observed them thus fastened at the teat from
the bigness of a fly until they become as large as a mouse. Neither is
it any hurt to the old one to open this budget and look in upon her
young.

Sec. 28. The Indians had no other way of taking their water or land fowl,
but by the help of bows and arrows. Yet so great was their plenty, that
with this weapon only they killed what numbers they pleased. And when
the water fowl kept far from shore (as in warmer weather they sometimes
did) they took their canoes and paddled after them.

But they had a better way of killing the elks, buffaloes, deer, and
greater game, by a method which we call fire hunting: that is, a company
of them would go together back into the woods any time in the winter,
when the leaves were falling and so dry that they would burn; and being
come to the place designed, they would fire the woods in a circle of
five or six miles compass; and when they had completed the first round
they retreated inward, each at his due distance, and put fire to the
leaves and grass afresh, to accelerate the work, which ought to be
finished with the day. This they repeat till the circle be so contracted
that they can see their game herded all together in the