Plate Number: I 50

Anguis Gracilis Fuscus: The Ribbon-Snake

This is a slender Snake, usually not much bigger than the Figure. The Upper Part of the Body dark brown, with three parallel white Lines, extending the whole Length of the Body; the Belly white. They are very nimble and inoffensive.

Arbor baccifera, laurifolia, aromatica, fructu viridi calyculato racemoso: Winter's Bark

These Trees grow usually about twenty Feet high, and eight or ten Inches in Thickness, in the thick Woods of most of the Bahama Islands; the Leaves are narrow at the Stalk, growing wider at their Ends, which are broad and rounding, having a middle Rib only; they are very smooth, and of a light shining Green: In May and June, the Flowers, which are pentapetalous, come forth in Clusters at the Ends of the Branches; they are red and very fragrant, and are succeeded by round Berries in Size of large Peas, green, and when ripe (which is in February) purple, containing three shining black Seeds, flat on one Side, otherwise not unlike in Shape to a Kidney Bean; these Seeds in the Berry, are invellop'd in a slimy Mucilage. The whole Plant is very Aromatick, the Bark particularly being more used in Distilling, and in greater Esteem in the more Northern Parts of the World than in England. This Bark is that which is commonly known at the Shops by the Name of Winter's Bark, tho' truly not the right, as Sir Hans Sloane has judiciously informed us.