A true & exact history of the island of BarbadosLigon, Richard
History
A true & exact history of the island of Barbados
Ligon, Richard
Barbados -- Description and travel; Plants -- Barbados; Sugar -- Manufacture and refining -- Barbados
never go away; for when we see them, we take a gun, and comming neer,
shoot them, and the report of the gun frights, and makes those that
are alive flie away, and fetch one turn, and come back to see their
fellowes dead, and alight to them, and so we shoot and shoot again
till all be kill’d; for they will alwaies come back to see their dead
friends. The like we do with those birds we call Oxen and Kine, which
come to us in like manner. Small Swallowes we have now and then, but
somewhat different from ours in colour.
But there is a Bird they call, a Man of war, and he is much bigger
than a Heron, and flies out to Sea upon discoveries, (for they never
light upon the Sea) to see what ships are comming to the Iland; and
when they return, the Ilanders look out, and say, A ship is comming,
and finde it true. I have seen one of them, as high as I could look,
to meet us twenty leagues from land; and some others, almost as big
as Ducks, that in an evening came in a flock of twenty, or there
about, and they made divers turnes about the ship, a little before
Sun-setting; and when it grew dark, they lighted upon the ribs of the
ship, and with little nooses of packthred, the saylers caught them;
they were very fat and good.
Though the Bat be no Bird, yet she flies with wings, and alwaies
a little before Sunsetting, at which time they come out of holes,
chimneys, and hollow trees, and will raise them to a great height,
feeding themselves with flies that they finde in the aire, at that
time of the evening.
[Sidenote: _Of lesser Animals and Insects._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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