tionably larger,
or nearly as big as my finger, incessantly coasting up and down the edge
of the bank, and butterflies also were hovering over it, and I never saw
so many dor-bugs and beetles of various kinds as strewed the beach. They
had apparently flown over the bank in the night, and could not get up
again, and some had perhaps fallen into the sea and were washed ashore.
They may have been in part attracted by the light-house lamps.

The Clay Pounds are a more fertile tract than usual. We saw some fine
patches of roots and corn here. As generally on the Cape, the plants had
little stalk or leaf, but ran remarkably to seed. The corn was hardly
more than half as high as in the interior, yet the ears were large and
full, and one farmer told us that he could raise forty bushels on an
acre without manure, and sixty with it. The heads of the rye also were
remarkably large. The shadbush, (_Amelanchier_,) beach-plums, and
blueberries, (_Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum_,) like the apple-trees and
oaks, were very dwarfish, spreading over the sand, but at the same time
very fruitful. The blueberry was but an inch or two high, and its fruit
often rested on the ground, so that you did not suspect the presence of
the bushes, even on those bare hills, until you were treading on them. I
thought that this fertility must be owing mainly to the abundance of
moisture in the atmosphere, for I observed that what little grass there
was was remarkably laden with dew in the morning, and in summer dense
imprisoning fogs frequently last till mid-day, turning one's beard into
a wet napkin about his throat, and the oldest inhabitant may lose his
way within a stone's-throw of his house, or be obliged to follow the
beach for a guide. The brick house attached to the light-house was
exceedingly damp at that season, and writing-paper lost all its
stiffness in it. It was impossible to dry your towel after bathing, or
to press flowers without their mildewing. The air was so moist that we
rarely wished to drink, though we could at all times taste the salt on
our lips. Salt was rarely used at table, and our host told us that his
cattle invariably refused it when it was offered them, they got so much
with their grass and at every breath; but he said that a sick horse, or
one just from the country, would sometimes take a hearty draught of salt
water, and seemed to like it and be the better for it.

It was surprising to see how much water was contained in the ter