 the quadruped is often obliged to lick the
earth, in order to obtain the saline particles. These licks are great places of
resort with the hunters, who way-lay their game near the paths that lead to
them.
 
18 The scene of the foregoing incidents is on the spot where the village of
Ballston now stands; one of the two principal watering places of America.
 
19
Some years since, the writer was shooting in the vicinity of the ruins of Fort
Oswego, which stands on the shores of Lake Ontario. His game was deer, and his
chase a forest that stretched, with little interruption, fifty miles inland.
Unexpectedly he came upon six or eight ladders lying in the woods within a short
distance of each other. They were rudely made and much decayed. Wondering what
could have assembled so many of these instruments in such a place, he sought an
old man who resided near for the explanation.
    During the war of 1776 Fort Oswego was held by the British. An expedition
had been sent two hundred miles through the wilderness to surprise the fort. It
appears that the Americans, on reaching the spot named, which was within a mile
or two of the fort, first learned that they were expected, and in great danger
of being cut off. They threw away their scaling ladders, and made a rapid
retreat. These ladders had lain unmolested thirty years, in the spot where they
had thus been cast.
 
20 Baron Dieskau, a German, in the service of France. A few years previously to
the period of the tale, this officer was defeated by Sir William Johnson of
Johnstown, New York, on the shores of Lake George.
 
21 Evidently the late De Witt Clinton, who died governor of New York, in 1828.
 
22 The accounts of the number who fell in this unhappy affair, vary between five
and fifteen hundred.
 
23 The powers of the American mocking-bird are generally known. But the true
mocking-bird is not found so far north, as the state of New-York, where it has,
however, two substitutes of inferior excellence; the cat-bird, so often named by
the scout, and the bird vulgarly called ground-thresher. Either of these two
last birds is superior to the nightingale or the lark, though, in general, the
American birds are less musical than those of Europe.
 
24
The beauties of Lake George are well known to every American tourist. In the
height of the mountains which surround it, and in artificial accessories, it is
inferior to the finest of the Swiss and Italian lakes, while in
