It appears that the constitutions of people become adapted to the climate in which they reside, and to such habits of life as they from generation to generation continue to pursue, and a change of these will affect persons more or less. This is evident from what is known in relation to the different races of mankind, some of whom live very different from others, and the exchange of some, whose food differs very widely, would be mortal to many of one or both of those races who should make the exchange.
Eight of us, all descendants of the four families, now all residents of the lower neighborhood, excepting myself, remain yet travelers on the last part of life's journey towards that change which all flesh has to undergo to answer the purposes of the Creator.
[BIRDS, REPTILES AND ANIMALS.]
Among all the changes mentioned, some of us have been spectators of nearly an extinction of birds in our valley and its vicinity, many different kinds of which formerly visited us in the spring of the year and continued with us during the summer and a part of the fall months. Their active flights from place to place and from tree to tree, and their musical voices of different sounds enlivened and cheered our lonely valley. These all had to be active to gratify their cravings of what was necessary to sustain life. Some wandered along streams of water to procure their food; some hovered high in the air of the atmosphere, from which they surveyed the lands and waters below them to discover the objects they craved for food, from which elevation the hawk would sometimes dart swiftly downward among a flock of birds and catch and make a prey of one of them, as well as of his objects on the ground. The fish-hawk hovered over the waters, the chicken-hawk over the landscapes to entrap their prey. The owl made his excursions in the night to seek his food, and each of the different tribes of birds possessed its own means of obtaining a living. Many of the worms and insects on the ground, and of those small insects which impregnated the air of the atmosphere, became a prey of birds.
Among the different tribes of birds which visited us were the following, to wit: Blackbirds of different kinds, crows, robins, swallows of different kinds, nightingales, snipe of different kinds, killdeers, cranes of different kinds, hawks of different kinds, owls of different kinds, turtle doves, whippoorwills, wrens of different kinds, bluebirds, partridges, quails, wood-peckers, eagles, snow birds, and a few other kinds.
The pleasing enjoyments of all species of birds are evidences of the goodness of their Creator; and the adaptation of all kinds of living creatures whatever to their respective modes of life, are evidences of a preexisting plan for the formation of each, and the manner in which each shall be furnished and receive whatever is necessary for its preservation during life.
Snakes have also become nearly extinguished in this valley within the last half century, previous to which there were yet some rattlesnakes, pilots, blacksnakes, sissing adders, gartersnakes, greensnakes, and milk-snakes, and toads and frogs are not as numerous now as in former times.
Now, although some of these reptiles may appear to us as unnecessary nuisances, yet they undoubtedly have answered certain good purposes in their sphere of being. A few persons of this neighborhood have suffered from the bites of poisonous snakes, but remedies were here known in former times which saved the lives of those who were bitten. Their number within my knowledge was six.
There was a singular occurrence in Rochester, in Ulster county, in former times, to wit: At an early period of the settlement of that place, a certain man in time of harvest in going with a wagon, with shelvings on it, to fetch a load of grain, and, passing near a rattlesnake in the grain field, stopped his team, and, with a fork which had a very long handle, wherewith as he stood in the wagon he reached the snake and began to tease it and soon saw that it began to swell, and being anxious to see to what size it would expand itself, he continued to tease it until its body became swollen to a very large size, when it made a spring and passed over wagon and shelvings without touching any of it and came down on the ground on the other side of the wagon, and, in passing over it, the man very narrowly escaped being bitten in his face by the snake as he stood in the wagon. Such an occurrence was a good warning against trying such experiments.