They reckon all birds of prey, and birds of night, to be unclean, and unlawful to be eaten. Not long ago, when the Indians were making their winter’s hunt, and the old women were without flesh-meat at home, I shot a small fat hawk, and desired one of them to take and dress it; but though I strongly importuned her by way of trial, she, as earnestly refused it for {130} fear of contracting pollution, which she called the “accursed sickness,” supposing disease would be the necessary effect of such an impurity. Eagles of every kind they esteem unclean food; likewise ravens (though the name of a tribe with them) crows, buzzards, swallows, bats, and every species of owls: and they believe that swallowing flies, musketoes, or gnats, always breeds sickness, or worms, according to the quantity that goes into them; which though it may not imply extraordinary skill in physic, shews their retention of the ancient law, which prohibited the swallowing of flies: for to this that divine sarcasm alludes, “swallowing a camel, and straining at a gnat.” Such insects were deemed unclean, as well as vexatious and hurtful. The God of Ekron was _Beelzebub_, or the God and ruler of flies. None of them will eat of any animal whatsoever, if they either know, or suspect that it died of itself. I lately asked one of the women the reason of throwing a dung-hill-fowl out of doors, on the corn-house; she said, that she was afraid, _Oophe Abeeka Hakset Illeh_, “it died with the distemper of the mad dogs,” and that if she had eaten it, it would have affected her in the very same manner. I said, if so, she did well to save herself from danger, but at the same time, it seemed she had forgotten the cats. She replied, “that such impure animals would not contract the accursed sickness, on account of any evil thing they eat; but that the people who ate of the flesh of the swine that fed on such polluting food, would certainly become mad.”