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Class VII. Crustacea.

The class Crustacea embraces those animals having a covering of a dense calcareous substance, adapted to their form, which they usu ally shed every year, and which is replaced by an exudation from the surface of the animal's body. Ten orders of this class of animals are supposed to exist in the state, though the existence of two of the ten is not determined with certainty.

Order 1st, Decapoda, those having ten feet, is the most numerous and best known. It embraces the various species of crab, lobster, fresh-water lobster, and most of the prawns or shrimps. There are in all twenty-seven species of this order.

Order 2d, Stomapoda, those having the feet converging towards the jaws, is less numerous, containing but three species. It embraces the opossum shrimp and the squill.

Order 3d, Amphipoda, those having feet connected with both divi. sions of the body, comprising the sand flea, beach flea, and fresh-wa ter shrimp. It has but four species.

Order 4th, Læmipoda, has but two species, the whale louse and the sea measuring worm.

Order 5th, Isopoda, is considerably numerous, containing four teen species. Seven of these are parasitic animals which obtain a subsistence by attachment to other animals. Among them are the salt and fresh-water barnacle; two species of sow bug; the pill bug; and a genus resembling the trilobite."

Order 6th, Pacilopoda, contains five species, and embraces the horsefoot, or king crab, so abundant on the sea coast; and parasites peculiar to the shark, the rock bass, and the alewife.

Orders 7th and 8th, Phyllopoda and Lophyropa, are not certainly known to exist in the state.

Orders 9th and 10th, Branchiopoda and Ostrapoda, have but one species each, and those not known, except to the zoologist.

Class VIII. Mollusca.

Mollusca is the name given to the class of animals whose bodies are encased in shells. Many of these are known by the name of shell fish.

There are six orders, embracing a large number of genera and spe cies, in the state.

The 1st order is Cephalopoda, those having the head surrounded by feet. The cuttle fish, or squid, and the syphon formed spirula, be long to this order.

The 2d order is Pteropoda, having fins on each side of the mouth, and without feet. To this order belongs the clio, the food of the whale.

The 3d order is Gasteropoda, having the feet under the body. The mollusca, belonging to this order, are very numerous in the state, and are arranged into eight sections or subdivisions, according to the structure of their gills or breathing apparatus.

It comprises, in addition to many species known only to the natu ralist, the family of slugs or snails, the animals inhabiting the turbi nated shells, and those which yield the famous Tyrian purple dye. The 4th order, Acephala, those having no distinct head, is divided

into three sections, and comprises by far the greater number of shell fish with which we are familiar.

In the 2d section, Lamellibranchia, those having leaf-like gills, of a semicircular form, we find the oyster, scallop, bloody clam, mussel, and the fresh-water clam and mussel.

In the third section, Conchifera, those having single and distinct shells, we find the quahog, or common round clam, and the long clam.

The 5th and 6th orders, Cirrhopoda, those having filamentous or thread-like feet, and Tunicata, those covered with a leathery or membranous tunic instead of a shell, contain no species of general interest.

The researches of the state geologists have brought to light numerous genera and species of fossil mollusca, imbedded in the lime and sand stones of the state. The most remarkable and common of these are the various species of trilobite, the encrinite, the pentamerus, &c. Class IX. Insects.

No full account of the insects of this state has yet appeared. The naturalists of the adjacent states, of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, have described most of those, which are inhabitants of the state-and relying upon their descriptions, we shall mention some of those best known.

The order Coleoptera, beetles, is very numerous. In Pennsylvania more than 1500 species have been discovered. The boring beetle, hammering beetle, tumble bug, ground beetle, horn bug, goldsmith beetle, and some others of brilliant colors, are the most

common.

The order Orthoptera, includes the cockroaches, crickets and grasshoppers, of which there are many species. The katydid, so well known by the peculiar sound produced by its wing covers, belongs to the latter family.

The order Homoptera comprises the locusts; one species of these is remarkable for remaining seventeen years in the grub state.

The order Hemiptera, bugs, comprises many of those insects injurious to vegetation, particularly the May bug, the lady bug, the apple tree blight, &c.

The order Lepidoptera, butterflies, are very numerous, probably numbering not less than 1000 species. Among those that fly during the day, those best known are, the small yellow winged butterfly, and the large yellow and black butter-fly. The variety, and beauty of their colors, attract universal attention. Some of the nocturnal species are very large.

The order Arachnida, spiders, though now usually considered as a separate class, may come in here with propriety. There are probably between one and two hundred species of these in the state. Some of them are very large, and possessed of great beauty. The long legs, the clawed spider, the tick, mite, louse, &c, also belong to this order. The worms of the state, and its animalcules, have not yet been made subjects of general investigation.

CIVIL HISTORY OF NEW YORK.

DUTCH COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION.

DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT.

THE bay of New York was first discovered in 1524, by Jean de Verrazano, a Florentine in the service of France. It does not appear, however, that Francis I. the monarch under whom this discovery was made, ever took advantage of it, or laid claim to the territory adjacent, in consequence of Verrazano's exploration.

On the 4th of Sept. 1609, Henry Hudson, an Englishman, in the service of the States General of Holland, again discovered it, and ascended the river, which now bears his name, to a point a little below the present city of Albany. His ship, or yacht, was of about eighty tons burthen, and was called the Half Moon.

Landing in England on his return, he despatched an account of his adventures to the Dutch East India Company, with the request, that they would furnish him with the means of making another voyage. The English Government, however, determining to secure his services, forbade his sailing again in the service of Holland.

Shortly after, he received the command of a ship, with directions to explore the Northern coast of America, in the hope of finding a North West passage. Having discovered and entered the bay which now bears his name, his crew mutinied, and putting him with some of his men into a small boat, abandoned them to their fate. Whether they perished by the waves, by hunger, or by the inclemency of the climate, is unknown.

The country thus discovered by Hudson, was inhabited by numerous roving tribes of Indians, of whom the Maquaas or Mohawks were the most formidable and warlike. The Manhattans, who inhabited the island on which New York is situated, were also a fierce and warlike nation. Between thirty and forty of these tribes occupied Long Island and the country watered by the Hudson and Delaware rivers and their branches.

In 1610, a ship was sent by some merchants in Amsterdam, to trade with the Indians of Hudson river, for furs, &c. Other voyages were made during the succeeding years. In 1613, one

or two small trading forts were erected on the river; and four houses were built on Manhattan Island, under the superintendence of Hendrick Corstiaensen, who visited with his trading boats every creek, inlet and bay in the vicinity, for the purpose of securing for his employers, the furs and produce of the country.

On the 29th of March, 1614, the States General of the United Netherlands passed an ordinance, granting to all original discoverers of lands in North America, the exclusive privilege of making four voyages to such lands as they had discovered, for the purposes of trade. Under this ordinance, five ships were despatched, by a company of merchants, the same year. The command of these vessels was given to Adriaen Blok, Hendrick Corstiaensen and Cornelis Jacobsen Mey. They explored extensively the coast near New York.

Blok discovered and named Block Island, south of Rhode Island, and also the East river, to which he gave the name of Hellegat, from the Hellegat river in East Flanders.

Captain Mey proceeding southward, discovered and named Capes May and Henlopen, or Hindlopen. On the return of these ships, a Capt. Hendrickson was left on the coast, to prosecute discoveries.

The tract of country extending from the Connecticut to the Delaware river, received the name of New Netherlands; and the exclusive right to trade there for three years from that date, Oct. 11, 1614, was granted to the discoverers by the States General.

The discoverers, upon the passage of this grant, formed themselves into a company, called the United New Netherlands Company. This company erected, the same year, a fort and a trading house at an island, near the head of navigation on the Hudson, just below the present city of Albany, and garrisoned it with ten or twelve men. Another fort was erected at the southern point of Manhattan Island; and men were despatched in every direction among the Indian tribes, to induce them to trade with the company.

In 1618, a flood in the North river, or Mauritius, as it was called, injured the company's fort at Castle Island, near Albany, so much that it was deemed best to remove it to another position. Accordingly, a site was chosen on the Normanskill, or creek, a few miles below. Here they made a treaty with the Five Nations. The charter granted to the New Netherlands Company, by the States General, having expired this year, (1618,) they petitioned for its renewal, but in vain. Private traders, principally the former partners of that company, continued, however, to visit the country for the purposes of traffic.

At this period the attention of the Puritans, who afterwards settled at Plymouth, was attracted to this fertile and beautiful country. Having in vain applied to England, for grants of territory in the New World, they intimated, in the beginning of the year 1620, to the prominent individuals concerned in the trade to the New Netherlands, their desire to emigrate thither. This intimation was readily and willingly received by these traders, and a petition presented by them to the States General, for their approval of the project. War existing, however, between the States General and Spain, that body thought best, not to approve this proposition.

In June, 1621, was passed the charter of the Dutch West India Company, an armed Mercantile Association, which was designed to extend the fame and power of the Netherlands; and to render them formidable upon the seas to Spain, their old and sanguinary enemy. This charter, though not particularly favorable to freedom, was as liberal in its provisions, as that of any other commercial association of that period.

The West India Company having been fully organized, sent out a ship called the New Netherlands, on the 20th of June, 1623, to their newly acquired possessions, under the direction of Capt. Mey already noticed, and Adriaen Joriszen Tienpont. The former of these, proceeded immediately to the Delaware, then called the South, or Prince Hendrick's river, and there established a fort, near the present town of Gloucester, which he named fort Nassau. The same year a fortified post, called Fort Orange, was erected within the limits of the present city of Albany, a few miles above that erected in 1618, on the Normanskill.

DIRECTOR MINUIT'S ADMINISTRATION.

In 1624, Peter Minuit, of Wesel, in Westphalia, having been appointed director of New Netherlands, arrived in the country, bringing with him several families of Walloons, inhabitants of the frontier between Belgium and France.

These settled on a bay of Long Island, near Manhattan Island, called from them Wahlebocht, or the bay of the foreigners, a name since corrupted into Wallabout. Here Sarah de Rapelje, the first child of European parentage, whose birth occurred in the colony, was born in June, 1625.

The government of this newly established colony was vested in the director, and a council of five, who possessed supreme executive, legislative and judicial authority in the colony. The only other important officer of the government was the Schout Fiscal, who filled both the offices of Sheriff and Attorney General. Under the superintendence of these authorities, the trade of the colony prospered.

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