In speaking of the spider, it would be improper to be silent upon the industry of this little creature; I call them little, although, if compared with our common spider, they are very large; they spread their web in the woods between trees, generally to a distance of twelve or fourteen yards, and weave them so very strong, that it requires considerable force to break them.  I have seen the silk of which the web is composed, wound off into a ball, and think it equal to any I ever saw in the same state from the silk worm; it is of the same colour, a pale yellow, or straw colour.  None of the gentlemen employed here have as yet made any particular observations upon the manner in which this animal is produced, or how they prepare their silk.  I have found upon bushes, on which the web has been hanging in clusters, a thin shell, something like that wherein the silk-worm prepares its silk, but of this shape, [The image is included in the HTML version] and, upon opening them, I have seen a quantity of this silk within, in which a spider was found wrapped up.

Of reptiles, there are snakes from the smallest size known in England, to the length of eleven feet, and about as thick as a man’s wrist; and many lizards of different kinds and sizes.

The natives we have seen accompanied by dogs, which appear to be domesticated the same as ours in Europe; they are of the wolf kind, and of a reddish colour.

When speaking of birds, I should have mentioned, that some of our gentlemen have seen in the lagoons and swamps which they have fallen in with, in their shooting excursions, the black swan, which is said to have been found in some parts of the west coast of this country; the extremity of their wings are described to be white, and all the rest of the plumage black.  I have seen one which has been shot.  It answered the above description as to colour, but the bill was a pale pink or crimson; it was about the size of a common white swan, and was good meat.

The vast variety of beautiful plants and flowers, which are to be found in this country, may hereafter afford much entertainment to the curious in the science of botany; but I am wholly unqualified to describe the different sorts with which we find the woods to abound; we sometimes met with a little wild spinach, parsly, and sorrel, but in too small quantities to expect it to be of any advantage to the seamen.  The flax plant has been found here in several places, but not in any considerable quantity; I have heard it reckoned a good kind, but in that also I must confess my ignorance.

In the infancy of a distant settlement, the want of timber to carry on the necessary buildings, will be allowed to be a very great inconvenience; but we were here in the middle of a wood, in which were trees from the size of a man’s arm to twenty-eight feet in circumference; but they were either so very crooked, so rent, or so very rotten in the heart, that we could scarcely get one sound or serviceable in a dozen; and what in our situation was a very great misfortune, we had not as yet found one piece of timber that would float in water.  The wood is so exceedingly heavy, that when a large tree was cut down, in order to clear a piece of ground, it would sometimes take a party of men three or four days to dispose of it, or move it from the place.