In his letter about two illustrations of Algonquians fishing in Pamlico Sound, Thomas M. Leschine compares a watercolor from 1585 by John White with an engraved version published by Theodor de Bry in 1590, reproduced respectively on the covers of Science (27 July) and Oceanus (summer 1981). Leschine says that, to him, “the real message of both illustrations is allegorical, embodied in the…image, dead center, of two humans seemingly intent upon burning a hole directly through the bottom of their canoe.” ( Science 's Compass, Letters, “Mixed messages from the distant past·”, 14 Sept., p. [1993][1]). There is, however, a real message that is ethnographic and historical, as P. Hulton, D. B. Quinn, C. E. Raven, and I explained in the standard publication on White's watercolors and the de Bry derivatives ([1][2]). The fauna are there identified as to species, and the differences between the fish trap, or weir, shown in the two depictions are discussed, casting doubt on de Bry's version as compared with White's original. According to contemporary sources, the small fire in the dugout canoe is a burning pile of “light-wood splinters, on a hearth built up nearly to the gunwales, which was used in night fishing to attract the fish and make visible the bottom of the river; the fish were then speared from the canoe” ([1][2]). 1. [↵][3]1. P. Hulton, 2. D. B. Quinn , The American Drawings of John White, 1577–1590, with Drawings of European and Oriental Subjects. Vol. I, A Catalogue Raisonne and a Study of the Artist, with contributions by W. C. Sturtevant, C. E. Raven, R. A. Skelton, L. B. Wright; Vol. II, Reproductions of the Originals in Colour Facsimile and of Derivatives in Monochrome (Trustees of the British Museum, London, and Univ. of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, 1964); vol. I, pp. 102–103. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.293.5537.1993b [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #xref-ref-1-1 "View reference 1 in text"