Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/143

 species of game was more numerous in the other parts of the territory of Virginia than in the peninsula between the York and the James, this peninsula having been more systematically ravaged by the Indians. That such was the case was due to the fact that these two broad rivers, running parallel to one another and separated only by a short distance, prevented the game from escaping. In some instances, the turkeys killed by the early colonists are said to have weighed fifty and even seventy pounds, while a weight of forty, it seems, was quite common. The flesh of this bird was pronounced by many to be the most delicately flavored they had eaten in Virginia.

There were three varieties of eagles: the black, the gray, and the bald. The black built its nest in the top of some blasted tree standing near the shore, and commanding a prospect of a wide expanse of water. Here it sat, gazing up and down in the expectation of the rising of fish-hawks, which had darted upon their prey below the surface. The fish-hawk was frequently large enough to carry off a rock fish two feet in length. In addition to the varieties of hawks subsisting on fish, there were several varieties that confined their search for food to the land, such as the hare, the sparrow, and the ringtail. White, brown, and screech owls were common, and the crow too, a bird destined to do