To gratify this dire animosity, and in fulfilment
of his vow, he persevered for nearly half a century in the perilous and
exciting sport of squirrel-hunting, departing "every Year, for
forty-nine successive Years, on the 22d of October, excepting when that
Day fell on a Sunday," in which case he started on the Monday
following, to take vengeance for the outrage committed on his aged
relative. Calm philosophy, however, enabled him, "in the very storm,
tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of his passion," to observe and
record the following remarkable fact in Zoology: "When shot from a high
Limb they would put their Tails in their Mouths as they were tumbling,
and die in that Manner; I did not know what to make of it, 'till, in
Process of Time, I found that when they did so a hard Winter always
succeeded, and this may be depended on as infallible."
The author of "An Essay on Puffing" (a topic which we should hardly
have thought to have found under discussion at a period so much nearer
the golden age than the present) remarks,--"Dubious and uncertain is
the Source or Spring of Puffing in this Infant Country, it not being
agreed upon whether Puffs were imported by the primitive Settlers of
the Wilderness, (for the Puff is not enumerated in the aboriginal
Catalogue,) or whether their Growth was spontaneous or accidental.
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