owing, no doubt, to the fact that the whole of the surrounding country was overgrown with forest, but on the islands and in the vicinity of Kecoughtan and the Falls, where there was a considerable area of open land, it was very numerous at the time of the arrival of the English.[1] Much more remarkable was the opossum, an animal previously unknown to the colonists, but at once exciting curiosity on account of the natural pouch in its belly, in which it lodged, suckled and transported its young. A large water rat, differing from the English water rat only in the strong odor of musk pervading its fur, was also discovered; it built a nest of reeds, frequently as large as half a hogshead, containing two floors, with two rooms to the floor, two being above and two under ground. Panthers seem to have roamed only about the heads of the rivers, for none were seen in the Jamestown peninsula, although their skins and claws were noticed among the possessions of the Indians who inhabited that part of Virginia.[2] Insect and reptile life was everywhere abundant and varied. The marshy character of the country was revealed in the number of mosquitoes, rising in many places in vast swarms.[3] A peculiar worm in the salt waters of the navigable streams inflicted serious damage on the wooden hulls of the ships by eating into the planks exposed to its attacks, and thus causing leakage and decay.[4] There were several kinds of water frogs, one kind being ten times as large as the largest in England. This variety emitted the peculiar sound like the
- ↑ Strachey’s Historie of Travaile into Virginia, p. 123.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 124. The panther was found in the Northern Neck as late as 1688. See Letters of William Fitzhugh, June 1, 1688. Clayton mentions that one had been recently killed in Gloucester. This was near the end of the century.
- ↑ Strachey’s Historie of Travaile into Virginia, p. 63.
- ↑ Beverley’s History of Virginia, p. 94.
