Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/217

the roach), the mullet, a thick-shouldered, blunt-headed fish, the silver fish (perch), and the guard fish, sometimes come up the river. There is another species, somewhat of the nature of an eel, with a sharp spine which it can erect at pleasure; this is caught only in the fresh water, and is called a cobbler; a kind resembling it in salt water is named cat-fish. Perch will take no bait except the shrimps which are found about stumps of trees and logs of timber in the river. The snake-necked turtle sucks your bait off most ingeniously. We have the cray-fish from two to six inches long, and clams in abundance. These are all the productions of our river as far as we are yet acquainted with them. There are crabs in the salt water, different in shape from yours, and so very daring, that they have seized me by the foot frequently when pushing boats over the flats. Neither lobsters nor oysters have been found, though the shells of the latter are very numerous about the flats and Melville Water. Of the natives I have not heard or seen any thing of late, yet we do not trust our cattle in any distant place with less than two herds, and the settlers over the hills have a few soldiers allowed them for their protection. White ants are troublesome; these usually carry on their operations under the cover of a hard clay mound, which can with difficulty be entered even by the force of a hatchet. You