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A wild Girl.
5

seeing what she was eating, caused give her an unskinned rabbit, which she instantly stripped of the skin, and devoured.

Those who considered her then, were of opinion, that she was about nine years of age. She seemed black, as I have already said; but it soon appeared, after washing her several times, she was naturally white, as she still continues. They observed likewise, that her fingers, and in particular her thumbs, were extraordinarily large, in proportion to the rest of her hand, which was otherwise neat enough: And to this day her thumbs retain somewhat of that largeness, as I have seen with my own eyes. By her account, these large strong thumbs were very useful to her during her wild life in the woods: For when she had a mind to pass from one tree to another, without being at the trouble of descending and remounting, if the branches of the two trees were but at a small distance from each other, and though of no greater thickness than her finger, she would place her thumbs on a branch of the tree in which she happened to be, and by their means spring to the other, just like a squirrel. From this we may judge of the strength of those thumbs of her's, which were able, in this manner, to sustain the whole weight of her body in springing. The similitude of the squirrel is entirely her own: and indeed the flying squir-

rels