[1] Willis, in N. E. Geneal. Register, vol. ii. p. 204; and New
Series of the same, vol. i. p. 31. Williamson, Hist. of Maine, vol.
i. p. 682.
[2] Dr. T. W. Harris, in N. E. Geneal. Register, vol. ii. p. 306, has
corrected the mistake of Williamson and other writers as to Henry
Josselyn of Scituate’s being of kin to Mr. Josselyn of Black Point;
and Mr. Willis, who had adopted the same error in his first paper,
already cited, now admits, in his second, that there is not “any
evidence that” the proprietor of Black Point “left any children, or
ever had any.”
[3] Letter of Rev. J. Hunter, 12th April, 1859.
[4] See also a Pedigree of Joselyne from the Visitation of
Hertfordshire in 1614, furnished by Mr. S. G. Drake to the
New-England Genealogical Register, vol. xiv. p. 16. This is probably
one of the sources from which Lodge’s account was derived.
[5] Lodge, Peerage of Ireland, vol. iii. p. 65, and _ante_.
[6] Lodge, _ubi supra_. Annual Register, 1771, p. 174.
[7] But there is no doubt that the author was himself as far
from sharing in the serious English thought of the Puritans of
Massachusetts Bay as he was from joining in their evangelical faith.
Yet there is hardly more than one place in either of his books
(Voyages, pp. 180-2) where this is offensively brought forward. It
is worthy of remark, however, that Josselyn’s family, in England,
was attached rather to the Puritan side. “His family connections,”
says Mr. Hunter, in the letter already referred to, “appear to
have been adherents to the cause of the Parliament; particularly
the Harlakendens, in whose regiment a Jocelyn, named Ralph, was a
chaplain.” Nor is this all. “In the year 1663,” continues the learned
authority just cited, “there was a slight insurrectionary movement
in the North; which was easily put down by the government, and the
leaders executed. In a manuscript list of persons who were either
openly engaged, or who were vehemently suspected of being favorers
of the design, I find in the latter class the name of Capt. John
Jossline.” This plot was not discovered till January, 1664; and our
John Josselyn “departed from London,” as he says at page one of this
volume, “upon an invitation of my only brother,” the 28th of May of
the year previous. But, if it be possible that our author was the
person intended in the manuscript list as one strongly suspected
of being engaged in a design against the Royal Government, the
evident uncertainty of this is too great to permit us to discredit
his own exposure of his political leanings,—as in the Voyages, p.
197, where, speaking of Sir F. Gorges, he says, “And, when he was
between three and fourscore years of age, did personally engage in
our royal martyr’s service, and particularly in the siege of Bristow;
and was plundered and imprisoned several times, by reason whereof
he was discountenanced by the pretended Commissioners for Forraign
Plantations,” and so forth,—or in the face of another passage to be
quoted further on, in which he acknowledges “the bounty of his royal
sovereigness,” to question the sincerity—which there is nothing in
either of his books to throw doubt upon—of his general adhesion to
the Royalist side. “The family in Hertfordshire,” says Mr. Hunter,
“were nonconformists; but the spirit of nonconformity seems to have
spent itself at the death of Sir Strange Jocelyn, the second baronet,
who died in 1734. But we may trace the Puritan influence in the
present Earl of Roden, who is a conspicuous member of the religious
body in England called the Evangelical.”—Ms. _ut sup._
[8] And see the Voyages, p. 187, for an account of a “Barbarie-Moor
under cure” of the author, when he “perceived that the Moor had one
skin more than Englishmen. The skin that is basted to the flesh is
bloudy, and of the same Azure colour with the veins, but deeper than
the colour of our Europeans’ veins. Over this is an other skin, of
a tawny colour, and upon that [the] _Epidermis_, or _Cuticula_,—the
flower of the skin, which is that Snake’s cast; and this is tawny
also. The colour of the blew skin mingling with the tawny, makes
them appear black.” Dr. Mitchell, the botanist of Virginia, has a
paper upon the same topic,—the cause of the negro’s color,—in the
Philosophical Transactions; but this appears less in accordance with
more recent researches (Prichard, Nat. Hist. of Man, p. 81) than
Josselyn’s observations.
[9] “His book is a curiosity, sometimes worth examining, but seldom
to be implicitly relied on.”—_Savage_, in Winthrop, N. E., vol. i. p.
267, note.
[10] Reprinted, the third edition, with an introductory essay and
some notes; Boston, 1764,—the edition made use of in these notes.
[11] Biographie Universelle, _in loco_.
[12] He is called _Botanicus Regius_ by Cornuti, p. 22; and the same
title is given to both the Robins, in the printed catalogue of plants
cultivated by them. Tournefort indicates the office of Vespasian
Robin, at the new Botanic Garden, as follows: “_Brossæus_ ... primus
Horti præfectus, studiosis plantas indigitandi numeri præposuit
Vespasianum Robinum diligentissimum Botanicum.”—_Inst. Rei Herb._,
vol. i. p. 48. And the recent writer in the Biographic Universelle,
says, more expressly, that the royal _ordonnance_ establishing the
garden names Vespasian Robin “sub-demonstrator” of botany, with a
stipend of two hundred francs yearly. According to this writer, the
two Robins were not, as has been said, father and son, but brothers;
and Vespasian the elder. This one must have reached a great age, as
the celebrated Morrison, who visited France in 1640, and remained
there twelve years, calls himself his disciple.—_Biog. Universelle_,
_in loco_.
[13] Tournefort, _ubi supra_.
[14] Cornuti autem parum fuit in plantarum cognitione versatus,
ut manifestum est ex ineptis appellationibus quibus utitur in
Enchiridio Botanico Parisiensi, et descriptionibus speciosis ab
Herbariorum stylo tamen alienis.—_Tournef. Inst._, vol. i. p. 43.
Compare, as to the botanical merits of Cornuti, the writer in
Biographic Universelle, who says that Cornuti’s terminology, to
which Tournefort took exception, was that of Lobel; and farther,
that the catalogue—Enchiridium Botanicum Parisiense—which is annexed
to Cornuti’s larger work, is in several respects creditable to
him.—_Biog. Univ._, _in loco_.
[15] Mention of New-England plants may be found in earlier writers
than Cornuti or Josselyn; but what is said is now rarely available.
Gosnold’s expedition was in 1602; and the writer of the account
of it tells us that the island upon which his party proposed to
settle (Cuttyhunk, one of the Elizabeth Islands) was covered with
“oaks, ashes, beech, walnut, witch-hazel, sassafrage, and cedars,
with divers others of unknown names;” beside “wild pease, young
sassafrage, cherry-trees, vines, eglantine, gooseberry-bushes,
hawthorn, honeysuckles, with others of the like quality;” as also
“strawberries, rasps, ground-nuts, alexander, surrin, tansy, &c.,
without count.”—_Mass. Hist. Coll._, vol. xxviii. p. 76. And so the
writer of Mourt’s Relation, in 1620, speaks of “sorrel, yarrow,
carvel, brook-lime, liverwort, watercresses, &c.”, as noticed, “in
winter,” however, at Plymouth.—_Hist. Coll._ vol. viii. p. 221. There
is much here which is true enough, though the “eglantine” of the
first writer is an evident mistake, as doubtless also the “carvel”
of the other; but we have no reason to suppose that either of these
passages ever had any scientific value. Josselyn, so far as his
Botany goes, does not belong to this class of writers. There are
important parts of his account of our plants, in which we know with
certainty what he intended to tell us; and, farther, that this was
worth the telling. And the credit which fairly belongs to the new
_genera_ of American plants, in some sort indicated by him, shall
illustrate as well those other portions of his work where what he
meant is a matter rather of deduction from his particulars, such as
they are, in the light of his only here-and-there-cited authorities,
than of plain fact. His English names—common, and perhaps often
indefinite, as they strike us—had more of scientific value, in
botanical hands at least, when he wrote, than now; and, there is good
reason to suppose, were meant to indicate that the plants intended,
or in some cases the _genera_ to which they belonged, were the same
with those published, under the same names, by Gerard, Johnson, and
Parkinson.
[16] Winthrop’s Journal, by Savage, edit. 1, vol. i. p. 64, note. See
also Bancroft’s character of the younger Winthrop, in History of the
United States, vol. ii. p. 52.
[17] Eliot, Biog. Dict., _in loco_.
[18] Eliot, Biog. Dict., _in loco_.
[19] Interleaved Almanacs of 1646-48, cited by Savage (Winthrop, N.
E., vol. ii. p. 332), mention “Tankard” and “Kreton” (perhaps Kirton)
apples, as well as Russetins, Pearmains, and Long-Red apples; beside
“the great pears,” and apricots, as grown here. In the Records of the
Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay (Records of Mass., vol.
i. p. 24), there is an undated _memorandum_, “To provide to send for
Newe England ... stones of all sorts of fruites; as peaches, plums,
filberts, cherries, pear, aple, quince kernells,” &c., which the
“First General Letter of the Governor,” &c., of the 17th April, 1629,
again makes mention of (_ibid._, p. 392); and Josselyn (Voyages, p.
189) remarks on the “good fruit” reared from such kernels. But, if
this were the only source of our ancestors’ English fruit, the names
which they gave to the seedlings must have been vague.—For other
early notices of cultivated fruit-trees, see Savage Gen. Dict. 4, p.
258, and the same, 4, p. 621. Saml. Sewall, jun. Esq., of Brookline,
had trees grafted with ‘Drew’s Russet,’ and ‘Golden Russet’ apples,
in 1724. (Gen. Reg. 16, p. 65.)
[20] Gronov. _Fl. Virg._, edit. 2. In Mr. Dillwyn’s (unpublished)
“Account of the Plants cultivated by the late Peter Collinson,” from
his own catalogue and other manuscripts, I find Collinson quoting Mr.
Dudley’s paper on Plants of New England, above mentioned; but not
that on the Evergreens.—_Hortus Collins._, p. 41.
[21] Eliot, Biog. Dict., and Allen, Amer. Biog. Dict., _in locis_.
[22] Mss. Cutler, _penes me_.
[23] Mss. Cutler, _penes me_.
[24] Mss. Cutler, _penes me_.
[25] The late Dr. Waterhouse, Professor of Medicine at Cambridge,
read lectures on Natural History to his classes as early as 1788,
and published the botanical part of these lectures in the Monthly
Anthology, 1804-8; reprinting this in 1811, with the title of the
Botanist (Boston, 8vo, pp. 228). In the preface to this volume,
the author’s are claimed to have been the first public lectures
on Natural History given in the United States. The Massachusetts
Professorship of Botany and Entomology was founded in 1805, and
the Botanical Garden in 1807; but the eminent naturalist who first
filled the chair left little behind him to bear witness to his
acknowledged “learning and genius.”—_Quincy, Hist. Harv. Univ._, vol.
ii. p. 330. The studies of Peck were not, however, confined to the
_Fauna_ and _Flora_ of New England; and his distinguished successors
in the lecture-room and the botanical garden—Mr. Nuttall, the late
Dr. Harris, and Professor Gray—may be said to have maintained a
like general, rather than local character, in the entomological and
botanical investigations pursued at the University.
[26] This house was one Mr. Robert Gibbs’s “of an ancient family in
Devonshire,” says Farmer (Geneal. Reg., p. 120); and it stood on Fort
Hill, the way leading to it becoming afterwards known as Gibbs’s
Lane, and a wharf at the waterside, belonging to the property, as
Gibbs’s Wharf. Mr. W. B. Trask, who obligingly examined for me the
early deeds concerning this estate in Suffolk Registry, furnishes a
_memorandum_, that on the 6th June, 1671, Robert Gibbs of Boston,
merchant, conveys to Edward and Elisha Hutchinson, in trust, for
Elizabeth, wife of said Robert, during her life, and after her
decease to such child or children as he shall have by her, his land
and house on Fort Hill, with warehouse on wharf, ‘which land was
formerly my grandfather, Henry Webb’s.’ The wife of said Robert Gibbs
was daughter to Jacob Sheafe by Margaret, daughter to Henry Webb,
mercer. Sampson Sheafe, a Provincial councillor of New Hampshire,
and the ancestor of a family of long standing there, married another
daughter of Jacob Sheafe. Mr. Gibbs was father to the Rev. Henry
Gibbs, minister of Watertown, and had other children; and the family
continues to this day.
[27] Compare the author’s Voyages, pp. 19, 161, 173, for other
notices of Boston, and as to the first of these, which represents the
town (in 1638) as “rather a village, ... there being not above twenty
or thirty houses,” see the note in Savage’s Winthrop, edit. 1, vol.
i. p. 267.
[28] Mr. Henry Josselyn was probably living at Black Point in 1638,
when his brother first visited it (Voyages, p. 20). It was then the
estate (by grant from the council at Plymouth) and residence of
Captain Thomas Cammock; but he, dying in 1643, bequeathed it, except
five hundred acres which were reserved to his wife, to Josselyn,
who, marrying the widow, succeeded to the whole property, which was
described as containing fifteen hundred acres (Willis _infra_), but
is called by Sullivan five thousand (History of Maine, p. 128). In
1658, this and other adjoining tracts were erected into a town by
Massachusetts, under the name of Scarborough, which is thus further
noticed by our author in his Voyages, p. 201, as “the town of Black
Point, consisting of about fifty dwelling-houses, and a Magazine, or
_Doganne_, scatteringly built. They have store of neat and horses, of
sheep near upon seven or eight hundred, much arable and marsh, salt
and fresh, and a corn-mill.”—Comp. Williamson’s Hist. of Maine, vol.
i. pp. 392, 666; Willis in Geneal. Register, vol. i. p. 202.
[29] _Empyema_ is a result of disease of the lungs. See Voyages, p.
121.
[30] Compare the accounts of the first appearance of the country by
the Rev. Francis Higginson and Mr. Thomas Graves, both well-qualified
observers, in New-England’s Plantation, London, 1630; reprinted in
Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 117. And see Wood’s New England’s
Prospect, a book which our author was probably acquainted with; as
compare p. 4 of Wood (edit. 1764) with the beginning of p. 3 of the
Rarities, and some other places in both.
[31] The earliest ascents of the White Mountains were those made by
Field and others in 1642, of which we have some account in Winthrop’s
Journal (by Savage, edit. 1, vol. ii. pp. 67, 89). Darby Field, “an
Irishman living about Pascataquack,” has the honor of being the
first European who set foot upon the summit of Mount Washington. He
appears at Exeter in 1639, and was at Dover in 1645, and died there
in 1649, leaving a widow, and, it is said, children (A. H. Quint, N.
E. Geneal. Reg., vol. vi. p. 38). It seems likely, from his account,
that Field, on reaching the Indian town in the Saco Valley, “at the
foot of the hill” where the “two branches of Saco river met,” pursued
his way up the valley either of Rocky Branch or of Ellis River, till
he gradually attained to the region of dwarf firs, on what is known
as Boott’s Spur, which is between the “valley” called Oakes’s Gulf,
in which the “Mount Washington” branch of the Saco has its head, and
the valley in which the Rocky Branch rises (see G. P. Bond’s Map of
the White Mountains). There is no other way that shall fulfil the
conditions of the narrative except that over Boott’s Spur; but of the
three streams, that is, “the two branches of Saco River,” which come
together at or near the probable site of the Indian town, the Rocky
Branch is the shortest, and its valley the most ascending. Field
repeated his visit, with some others, “about a month after;” and
later, in the same year, the mountains were visited by the worshipful
Thomas Gorges, Esq., Deputy-Governor, and Richard Vines, Esq.,
Councillor of the Province of Maine, of which Winthrop takes notice
at p. 89. Whether Josselyn went up himself, or had his account from
others, does not appear. But his calling the mountains “inaccessible
but by the gullies,” leaves it at least supposable, that he, or the
party from which he got his information (perhaps Gorges’s), instead
of gradually ascending the long ridges, or spurs, penetrated into
one of the gulfs (as they are there called), or ravines, of the
eastern side; the walls of which are exceedingly steep, and literally
inaccessible in many parts, except by the gullies. The “large level
or plain of a day’s journey over, whereon grows nothing but moss,”
is noticed in Winthrop’s account of Gorges’s ascent, but not in
that of Field’s; and this plain—which doubtless includes what has
since been called “Bigelow’s Lawn” (lying immediately under the
south-eastern side of the summit of Mount Washington), but understood
also, in Gorges’s account, to extend northward as far as the “Lake
of the Clouds”—furnishes another ground for supposing that the
last-mentioned explorer, or, at least, Josselyn, may have penetrated
the mountain by one of its eastern ravines; several of which head
in the great plain mentioned, while that is rather remote from what
we have taken for Field’s “ridge.” Our author is the only authority
for the “pond of clear water in the midst of” the top of Mount
Washington; though a somewhat capacious spring, which was well known
there before the putting-up of the house on the summit, may have been
larger once; or he may rather have mistaken, or misremembered, the
position of the Lake of the Clouds.
[32] Compare, as to the insulation of the tract understood by
Josselyn as New England, Palfrey, Hist. N. E., vol. i. pp. 1, 2, and
note, and the accompanying map.
[33] See the author’s larger account of the natives in his Voyages,
pp. 123-150.
[34] There is a much fuller account—to be noticed again—of our birds,
in the Voyages, pp. 95-103. Wood’s (N. E. Prospect, chap, viii.) is
also curious. In the notes which immediately follow, on the birds,
beasts, fishes, and reptiles, the oldest writers on our natural
history will be found often to explain or illustrate each other.
[35] Chimney-swallow.
[36] “The pilhannaw is the king of birds of prey in New England.
Some take him to be a kind of eagle; others for the Indian ruck,—the
biggest bird that is, except the ostrich. One Mr. Hilton, living at
Pascataway, had the hap to kill one of them. Being by the sea-side,
he perceived a great shadow over his head, the sun shining out clear.
Casting up his eyes, he saw a monstrous bird soaring aloft in the
air; and, of a sudden, all the ducks and geese (there being then a
great many) dived under water, nothing of them appearing but their
heads. Mr. Hilton, having made readie his piece, shot and brought
her down to the ground. How he disposed of her, I know not; but
had he taken her alive, and sent her over into England, neither
Bartholomew nor Sturbridge Fair could have produced such another
sight.”—_Josselyn’s Voyages_, p. 95. These notices have been taken
to be sufficient by some writers to show the probable existence of
“a bird of prey, very large and bold, on the back of some of our
American plantations.” But our author’s account indicates clearly
a crested eagle, which we cannot explain by any thing nearer home
than the yzquautli, or crested vulture of Mexico and the countries
south of it (_Falco Harpyja_, Gmel.); two notices of which (cited by
Linnæus) had been published some twenty years before Josselyn wrote,
and may have been supposed by him to be applicable to a large bird
which he had heard of as inhabiting mountains about Ossipee. The
great heron—an inhabitant of the coast, and so uncommon inland that
“one ... shot in the upper parts of New Hampshire was described to”
Wilson “as a great curiosity” (Amer. Ornith., by Brewer, p. 555)—has
the size and the crest of Josselyn’s bird; and, if this last was
only (as is possible) the name of a confused conception made up from
several accounts of large birds, the heron may well be thought to
have had a share in it.
[37] “Of these, sometimes there will be forty, threescore and a
hundred, of a flock; sometimes more, and sometimes less. Their
feeding is acorns, hawes, and berries: some of them get a haunt to
frequent English corn. In winter, when the snow covers the ground,
they resort to the seashore to look for shrimps, and such small
fishes, at low tides. Such as love turkey-hunting must follow it in
winter, after a new-fallen snow, when he may follow them by their
tracks. Some have killed ten or a dozen in half a day. If they can be
found towards an evening, and watched where they perch,—if one come
about ten or eleven of the clock,—he may shoot as often as he will:
they will sit, unless they be slenderly wounded. These turkies remain
all the year long. The price of a good turkey-cock is four shillings;
and he is well worth it, for he may be in weight forty pounds; a hen,
two shillings.”—_Wood_, _N. Eng. Prospect_, chap. viii. See also
Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 99.
[38] “The geese of the country be of three sorts. First, a brant
goose; which is a goose almost like the wild goose in England. The
price of one of these is sixpence. The second kind is a white goose,
almost as big as an English tame goose. These come in great flocks
about Michaelmas: sometimes there will be two or three thousand in
a flock. Those continue six weeks, and so fly to the southward;
returning in March, and staying six weeks more, returning to the
northward. The price of one of these is eightpence. The third kind
of geese is a great grey goose, with a black neck, and a black and
white head; strong of flight: and these be a great deal bigger
than the ordinary geese of England; some very fat, and, in the
spring, full of feathers, that the shot can scarce pierce them.
Most of these geese remain with us from Michaelmas to April. They
feed in the sea upon grass in the bays at low water, and gravel,
and in the woods of acorns; having, as other fowl have, their pass
and repass to the northward and southward. The accurate marksmen
kill of these both flying and sitting. The price of a grey goose
is eighteen-pence.”—_Wood_, _N. E. Prospect_, _l. c._ The white
goose here mentioned is probably the snow-goose; upon which compare
Nuttall, Mass. Ornith., Water-Birds, p. 344. Josselyn (Voyages, p.
100) says the brant and the gray goose “are best meat; the white
are lean and tough, and live a long time; whereupon the proverb,
‘Older than a white goose:’” which is not supported by Wood or later
writers. The snow-goose has become much less frequent with us since
the settlement of the country. The great grey goose of Wood is our
well-known Canada goose.
[39] This was the best that our author could say of the eagles of
New England. Wood assists us once more here: “The eagles of the
country be of two sorts,—one like the eagles that be in England;
the other is something bigger, with a great white head and white
tail. These be commonly called gripes.”—_New-Eng. Prospect_, _l.
c._ The first spoken of by Wood—and perhaps, also, what Josselyn
names last—may be the common or ring-tailed eagle, now known to be
the young of the golden eagle. The second of Wood, and first of our
author, is without doubt, the bald eagle; the (so to say) tyrannical
habits of which bird are sufficiently well known, at least in the
vivid pages of Wilson. See the Voyages, p. 96; where we learn also
that “hawkes there are of several kinds; as goshawks, falcons,
laniers, sparrow-hawkes, and a little black hawke highly prized by
the Indians, who wear them on their heads, and is accounted of worth
sufficient to ransom a sagamour. They are so strangely couragious and
hardie that nothing flyeth in the air that they will not bind with.
I have seen them tower so high, that they have been so small that
scarcely could they be taken by the eye” (p. 95-6). Wood makes like
mention of this little black hawk (New-Eng. Prospect, _l. c._); and
R. Williams (Key into the Language of the Indians of N. E., in Hist.
Coll., vol. iii. p. 220) calls it “sachim, a little bird about the
bigness of a swallow, or less; to which the Indians give that name,
because of its sachem or prince-like courage and command over greater
birds: that a man shall often see this small bird pursue and vanquish
and put to flight the crow and other birds far bigger than itself.”
This was our well-known king-bird; and Josselyn, on the same page,
tells us of “a small ash-colour bird that is shaped like a hawke,
with talons and beak, that falleth upon crowes; mounting up into the
air after them, and will beat them till they make them cry:” which
was, perhaps, the king-bird’s half-cousin, as Wilson calls him,—the
purple-martin.
[40] Nuttall (Manual, Water-Birds, p. 520) says that the young of the
red-throated diver is called cobble in England. Our author elsewhere
(Voyages, p. 101) makes mention of the “wobble” and the “wilmote”
(that is, guillemot) as distinct; but _his_ wilmot was “a kind of
teal.”
[41] “He maketh a noise sometimes like a sow-gelder’s horn.”—_N. Eng.
Prospect_, _l. c._
[42] The first is the great-horned or cat-owl; the second, probably,
the mottled or little screech-owl, which Wood notices more fully as
“small, speckled like a partridge, with ears” (_l. c._); and the
third, the Acadian or little owl. There are but two owls reckoned in
New-England’s Prospect; the second of which—“a great owl, almost as
big as an eagle; his body being as good meat as a partridge” (_l.
c._)—is, perhaps, the snowy owl, which, according to Audubon, is good
eating.—_Peabody Report on Birds of Mass._, p. 275.
[43] It is not clear what is meant here. The author merely mentions
the bird again, in Voyages, p. 96.
[44] So Wood: “There are no magpies, jackdaws, cuckoos, jays,
&c.”—_New-England’s Prospect_, _l. c._ Our author, in his Voyages,
adds to the above list of New-England birds the following: “The
partridge is larger than ours; white-flesht, but very dry: they
are indeed a sort of partridges called grooses. The pidgeon, of
which there are millions of millions.... The snow-bird, like a
chaffinch, go in flocks, and are good meat.... Thrushes, with red
breasts, which will be very fat, and are good meat.... Thressels, ...
filladies, ... small singing-birds; ninmurders, little yellow birds;
New-England nightingales, painted with orient colours,—black, white,
blew, yellow, green, and scarlet,—and sing sweetly; wood-larks,
wrens, swallows, who will sit upon trees; and starlings, black as
ravens, with scarlet pinions. Other sorts of birds there are; as the
troculus, wagtail or dish-water, which is here of a brown colour;
titmouse,—two or three sorts; the dunneck or hedge-sparrow, who is
starke naked in his winter nest; the golden or yellow hammer,—a bird
about the bigness of a thrush, that is all over as red as bloud;
woodpeckers of two or three sorts, gloriously set out with variety of
glittering colours; the colibry, viemalin, or rising or walking-bird,
an emblem of the resurrection, and the wonder of little birds. The
water-fowl are these that follow: Hookers, or wild swans; cranes; ...
four sorts of ducks,—a black duck, a brown duck like our wild ducks,
a grey duck, and a great black and white duck. These frequent rivers
and ponds. But, of ducks, there be many more sorts; as hounds, old
wives, murres, doies, shell-drakes, shoulers or shoflers, widgeons,
simps, teal, blew-wing’d and green-wing’d didapers or dipchicks,
fenduck, duckers or moorhens, coots, pochards (a water-fowl like
a duck), plungeons (a kind of water-fowl, with a long, reddish
bill), puets, plovers, smethes, wilmotes (a kind of teal), godwits,
humilities, knotes, red-shankes, ... gulls, white gulls or sea-cobbs,
caudemandies, herons, grey bitterns, ox-eyes, birds called oxen and
keen, petterels, king’s fishers, ... little birds that frequent the
sea-shore in flocks, called sanderlins. They are about the bigness of
a sparrow, and, in the fall of the leaf, will be all fat. When I was
first in the countrie” (that is, in 1638; in which connection, what
follows is not without its interest to us), “the English cut them
into small pieces to put into their puddings, instead of suet. I have
known twelve-score and above killed at two shots.... The cormorant,
shape or sharke” (pp. 99-103).
[45] Compare the account given in the Voyages, pp. 82-95, which is
much fuller; as also New-England’s Prospect, chap. vi.
[46] “Most fierce in strawberry-time; at which time they have young
ones; at which time, likewise, they will go upright, like a man, and
climb trees, and swim to the islands: which if the Indians see, there
will be more sportful bear-baiting than Paris garden can afford; for,
seeing the bears take water, an Indian will leap after him; where
they go to water-cuffs for bloody noses and scratched sides. In the
end, the man gets the victory; riding the bear over the watery plain,
till he can bear him no longer.... There would be more of them, if it
were not for the wolves which devour them. A kennel of those ravening
runagadoes, setting upon a poor, single bear, will tear him as a dog
will tear a kid.”—_New-Eng. Prospect_, _l. c._, which see farther;
and also Josselyn’s Voyages, pp. 91-2.
[47] Stupefied with drink.—_Webster_, _Eng. Dict._
[48] Thwart.
[49] “The woolves be in some respect different from them in other
countries. It was never known yet that a wolf ever set upon a man or
woman: neither do they trouble horses or cows; but swine, goats, and
red calves, which they take for deer, be often destroyed by them;
so that a red calf is cheaper than a black one, in that regard, in
some places.... They be made much like a mungrel; being big-boned,
lank-paunched, deep-breasted; having a thick neck and head, prick
ears and long snout, with dangerous teeth; long, staring hair, and
a great bush-tail. It is thought by many that our English mastiff
might be too hard for them: but it is no such matter; for they care
no more for an ordinary mastiff than an ordinary mastiff cares for
a cur. Many good dogs have been spoiled by them.... There is little
hope of their utter destruction; the country being so spacious, and
they so numerous, travelling in the swamps by kennels: sometimes
ten or twelve are of a company.... In a word, they be the greatest
inconveniency the country hath.”—_New-England’s Prospect_, _l. c._
[50] Spoken of again in the Voyages, pp. 94 and 193; and in Hubbard,
Hist. N. England, p. 25. Josselyn’s may be compared with Lewis and
Clark’s notice of the Indian dog (Travels, vol. ii. p. 165).
[51] Called also “lusern, or luceret,” in the Voyages, p. 85; the
loup-cervier of Sagard (Hist. Can., 1636, _cit._ Aud. and Bachm.
Vivip. Quad. N. A., p. 136); of Dobbs’s Hudson’s Bay, &c.; but more
commonly called gray cat, or lynx, in New England. Wood calls it
“more dangerous to be met withal than any other creature; not fearing
either dog or man. He useth to kill deer.... He hath likewise a
device to get geese: for, being much of the colour of a goose, he
will place himself close by the water; holding up his bob-tail, which
is like a goose-neck. The geese, seeing this counterfeit goose,
approach nigh to visit him; who, with a sudden jerk, apprehends his
mistrustless prey. The English kill many of these, accounting them
very good meat.”—_New-Eng. Prospect_, _l. c._ Audubon and Bachman
(_l. c._, p. 14) give a similar good account of the flesh of the
bay-lynx, or common wild-cat.
[52] The raccoon is, or has been, an inhabitant of all North America
(Godman, Nat. Hist., vol. i. p. 117), and was one of the first of our
animals with which European naturalists became acquainted. Linnæus
(Syst. Nat.) cites Conrad Gesner among those who have illustrated
or mentioned it. Wood says they are “as good meat as a lamb;” and
further, that, “in the moonshine night, they go to feed on clams at
a low tide, by the seaside, where the English hunt them with their
dogs.”—_New-Eng. Prospect_, _l. c._
[53] The author’s account of the Indian works in birch-bark and
porcupine-quills is much fuller in his Voyages, p. 143.
[54] Wood’s account is far better.—_New-Eng. Prospect_, chap. vii.
See page 53 of the Rarities for mention of the musk quash.
[55] See Voyages, pp. 88-91. Called _moos-soog_ (rendered “great-ox;
or, rather, red deer”) in R. Williams’s Key (Hist. Coll., vol. iii.
p. 223): but this is rather the plural form of _moos_; as see the
same, _l. c._ p. 222, and note, and Rasles’ Dict. Abnaki, _in loco_.
It is called _mongsöa_ by the Cree Indians; and, it should seem,
_mongsoos_ by the Indians of the neighborhood of Carlton House; as
see Richardson, in Sabine’s Appendix to Franklin’s Narrative of a
Journey to the Polar Sea, pp. 665-6. “The English,” says Wood, “have
some thoughts of keeping him tame, and to accustome him to the yoke;
which will be a great commodity.... There be not many of these in the
Massachusetts Bay; but, forty miles to the north-east, there be great
store of them.”—_New-Eng. Prospect_, _l. c._ On hunting the moose, as
practised by the Indians, see Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 136.
[56] Wood (N. E. Prospect, _l. c._) has but two kinds of deer: of
which the first is the moose; and the second, called “ordinary
deer,” and, in the vocabulary of Indian words, _ottuck_ (compare
_attuck_ or _noonatch_, deer,—R. Williams, _l. c._; but _atteyk_, in
the Cree dialect, signifies a small sort of rein-deer,—Richardson,
in Appendix to Franklin’s Journey, p. 665; and it is observable
that Rasles’ word for _chevreuil_ is _norke_), is our American
fallow-deer. R. Williams also appears to distinguish with clearness
but two; which are, perhaps, the same as Wood’s. Josselyn, in this
book, passes quite over the common, or fallow-deer: but, making up
in the Voyages for the fallings-short of the Rarities, he goes, in
the former, quite the other way; reckoning the roe, buck, red deer,
rein-deer, elk, _maurouse_, and _maccarib_. What is further said of
these animals, where he speaks more at large, makes it appear likely
that the second, third, and fourth names, so far as they have any
value, belong to a single kind,—the “ordinary deer” of Wood (whose
description possibly helped Josselyn’s), or our fallow-deer; to
which the “roe” is also to be referred: and the “elk” he himself
explains as the moose. But, beside these two kinds, Josselyn has
the merit of indicating, with some distinctness, one, or possibly
two, others,—the _maurouse_ and the _maccarib_. The _maurouse_—of
which only the Voyages make mention—“is somewhat like a moose; but
his horns are but small, and himself about the size of a stag. These
are the deer that the flat-footed wolves hunt after.”—_Voyages_, p.
91. This is to be compared with the _mauroos_, rendered “_cerf_,” of
Rasles’ Dict., _l. c._, p. 382; and, in such connection, is hardly
referable to other than the _caribou_, or rein-deer,—a well-known
inhabitant of the north-eastern parts of New England, and likely,
therefore, to have come to the knowledge of our author; while there
seems to be no testimony to its ever having occurred in Massachusetts
and southward, where Wood and Williams made their observations. The
last, or the _maccarib_, _caribo_, or _pohano_, of Josselyn, is
described above; and, in the Voyages (p. 91), he only repeats that it
“is not found, that ever I heard yet, but upon Cape Sable, near to
the French plantations.” The “round” hoofs of the _maccarib_ might
lead us to take this for the _caribou_ of Maine; the round track of
which differs much from that of the fallow-deer. But the former is
more likely to have been the American elk; so rare, it should seem,
where it occurred, when our author wrote, and so little known in the
New-England settlements, that his fancy, fed by darkling hearsay,
could deck it with the honors of the “unicorn.”
[57] “There are two or three kinds of them,—one a great yellow fox;
another grey, who will climb up into trees. The black fox is of much
esteem.”—_Josselyn’s Voyages_, p. 82; where is also an account of the
way of hunting foxes in New England. Wood has nothing special, but
that some of the foxes “be black. Their furrs is of much esteem” (_l.
c._) Williams (_l. c._) has “_mishquashim_, a red fox; _pequawus_,
a gray fox. The Indians say they have black foxes, which they have
often seen, but never could take any of them. They say they are
manittooes.” Beside the common red fox, or _mishquashim_, we have in
all these accounts—and also in Morell’s _Nova Anglia_, _l. c._, p.
129—mention of a black fox; which may have been the true black or
silver fox, or, in part at least, the more common cross-fox (Aud.
and Bachm., Viv. Quadr. N. A., p. 45); the pelt of which is also in
high esteem. For Williams’s gray fox, see the next note. Josselyn’s
climbing gray fox is perhaps the fisher (_Mustela Canadensis_,
Schreb.), notwithstanding the color. According to Audubon (_l. c._,
pp. 51, 310, 315), this is called the black fox in New England
and the northern counties of New York. I have heard it more often
called black cat in New Hampshire. But the true gray fox (_Vulpes
Virginianus_) “has, to a certain degree, the power of climbing
trees.” Newberry Zoology, Expl. for Pacific Railroad, vi, part 4, p.
40.
[58] “A creature much like a fox, but smaller.”—_Voyages_, p. 83.
Probably the gray fox, called _pequawus_ by R. Williams (_Vulpes
Virginianus_, Schreb.); which has not the rank smell of the red
fox.—_Aud. and Bachm._, _l. c._, p. 168.
[59] “They told me of a young lyon (not long before) kill’d at
Piscataway by an Indian.”—_Voyages_, p. 23. Higginson says that lions
“have been seen at Cape Anne.”—_New-Eng. Plantation_, _l. c._, p.
119. “Some affirm,” says Wood, “that they have seen a lion at Cape
Anne.... Besides, Plimouth men” (that is, men of old Plymouth, it
is likely) “have traded for lion-skins in former times. But sure it
is that there be lions on that continent; for the Virginians saw
an old lion in their plantation,” &c.—_New-Eng. Prospect_, _l. c._
The animal here spoken of may well have been the puma or cougar, or
American lion.
[60] “The rabbits be much like ours in England. The hares be some of
them white, and a yard long. These two harmless creatures are glad
to shelter themselves from the harmful foxes in hollow trees; having
a hole at the entrance no bigger than they can creep in at.”—_Wood_,
_New-Eng. Prospect_, _l. c._ Wood’s rabbit and Josselyn’s hare, so
far as the summer coloring goes, appear to be the gray rabbit (_Lepus
sylvaticus_, Aud. and Bachm., _l. c._ p. 173); and the white hare
of Wood—as also, probably, the hare, “milk-white in winter,” of
Josselyn—is doubtless the northern hare (_Lepus Americanus_, Erxl.,
Aud. and Bachm., _l. c._, p. 93).
[61] The Voyages mention, beside the quadrupeds above named, also
the skunk (_ségankoo_ of Rasles’ Dict., _l. c._); the musquash
(_mooskooéssoo_ of Rasles, _l. c._), for which see also p. 53 of
this; otter; marten, “as ours are in England, but blacker;” sable,
“much of the size of a mattrise, perfect black, but ... I never
saw but two of them in eight years’ space;” the squirrel, “three
sorts,—the mouse-squirril, the gray squirril, and the flying-squirril
(called by the Indian _assapanick_).” Our author’s mouse-squirrel,
which he describes, is the ground or striped squirrel: probably the
“_anequus_, a little coloured squirrel” of R. Williams, _l. c._;
and the _anikoosess_ (rendered _suisse_) of Rasles, _l. c._ The
mattrise of our author is, according to him, “a creature whose head
and fore-parts is shaped somewhat like a lyon’s; not altogether so
big as a house-cat. They are innumerable up in the countrey, and are
esteemed good furr.”—_Voyages_, p. 87. The sable is compared with the
mattrise, at least in size; and the name is perhaps comparable with
_mattegooéssoo_ of Rasles, _l. c._; but this is rendered _lièvre_.
Wood adds to this list of our quadrupeds, mistakenly, the ferret; and
R. Williams, the “_ockquutchaunnug_,—a wild beast of a reddish hair,
about the bigness of a pig, and rooting like a pig;” which seems to
answer, in name as well as habits, to our woodchuck, or ground-hog.
[62] The author’s attempt here at a general catalogue of the fishes,
mollusks, &c., of the North-Atlantic Ocean, affords but a poor
make-shift for such a list as we might fairly have expected from him
of the species known to the early fishermen in the waters and seas of
New England; and the account in his Voyages (pp. 104-15) is again an
improvement on the present, and is confined to the inhabitants of our
waters. The present editor has little to offer in elucidation of the
list; which indeed, in good part, appears sufficiently intelligible.
Compare Wood, New-Eng. Prospect, chap. x.
[63] “Like a herrin, but has a bigger bellie; therefore called an
alewife.”—Voyages, p. 107. The other names, alize and allow, are
doubtless corruptions of the French alose, also in use among London
fishmongers to designate shad from certain waters.—_Rees’s Cyc._,
_in loco_. The old Latin word _alosa_, supposed to have been always
applied to the fish just mentioned, is adopted by Cuvier for the
genus which includes our shad, alewife, and menhaden.
[64] The tunny is so called on the coast of New England.—_Storer’s
Report on the Fishes of Mass._, p. 48.
[65] It is, notwithstanding, set down in the author’s list of fishes
“that are to be seen and catch’d in the sea and fresh waters in New
England.”—_Voyages_, p. 113. And compare Storer, Synops. (Mem. Am.
Acad., N. S., vol. ii.), p. 300.
[66] See Voyages, p. 108. The first settlers esteemed the bass above
most other fish. See Higginson’s New-England’s Plantation (Hist.
Coll., vol. i. p. 120). Wood calls it (New-Eng. Prospect, chap. ix.)
“one of the best fish in the country; and though men are soon wearied
with other fish, yet are they never with bass. The Indians,” he says,
eat lobsters, “when they can get no bass.” The head was especially
prized; as see Wood, and also Roger Williams’s Key (Hist. Coll., vol.
iii. p. 224). The fish is our striped bass (_Labrax lineatus_, Cuv.;
Storer’s Report on Fishes of Mass., p. 7). Our author, at p. 37,
again mentions it as one of the eight fishes which “the Indians have
in greatest request.”
[67] See p. 96 as to the blue-fish, or horse-mackerel; and Storer,
_l. c._, p. 57.
[68] The bonito of our fishermen is the skipjack.—_Storer_, _l. c._,
p. 49.
[69] See p. 95.
[70] See p. 96. Josselyn’s character of the fish as food is confirmed
by Dr. Storer, _l. c._, p. 69.
[71] The clam is one of the eight fishes mentioned at p. 37 as most
prized by the Indians. “_Sickishuog_ (clams). This is a sweet kind
of shell-fish, which all Indians generally over the country, winter
and summer, delight in; and, at low water, the women dig for them.
This fish, and the natural liquor of it, they boil; and it makes
their broth and their nasaump (which is a kind of thickened broth)
and their bread seasonable and savoury, instead of salt.”—_Williams’s
Key, &c._, _l. c._ p. 224. “These fishes be in great plenty in most
parts of the country: which is a great commodity for the feeding
of swine, both in winter and summer; for, being once used to those
places, they will repair to them as duly, every ebb, as if they were
driven to them by keepers.”—_Wood_, _N. Eng. Prospect_, _l. c._ The
mollusk thus approved is the common clam (_Mya arenaria_, L.); but
the _poquauhock_, or quahog (_Venus mercenaria_, L.), “which the
Indians wade deep and dive for” (R. Williams, _l. c._, p. 224), was
also eaten by them, and the black part of the shell used for making
their _suckauhock_, or black money. Wood speaks also of “clams as
big as a penny white loaf, which are great dainties amongst the
natives” (N. E. Prospect, _l. c._); doubtless the giant clam (_Mactra
solidissima_, Chemn.) of Gould (Report on Invertebr. of Mass., p.
51), which is still esteemed as food.
[72] See p. 36; by which it appears that the author has in view
the _meteauhock_ of the Indians; “the periwinkle, of which they
make their _wompam_, or white money, of half the value of their
_suckauhock_, or black money” (R. Williams, _l. c._): supposed to be
_Buccinum undatum_, L. (Gould, _l. c._, p. 305); and possibly, also,
one or two other allied shell-fish.
[73] “Cod-fish in these seas” (that is, Massachusetts Bay) “are
larger than in Newfoundland,—six or seven making a quintal; whereas
they have fifteen to the same weight.”—_New-Eng. Prospect_, _l. c._
Compare Storer, _l. c._, p. 121. Josselyn has an entertaining account
of the sea-fishery, in his Voyages, pp. 210-13.
[74] See further of eels, and the author’s several ways of cooking
them, in his Voyages, p. 111. At p. 37 of the Rarities, eels are
mentioned among the fishes most prized by the Indians. “These eels be
not of so luscious a taste as they be in England, neither are they so
aguish; but are both wholesome for the body, and delightful for the
taste.”—_Wood_, _New-Eng. Prospect_, chap. ix.
[75] See p. 37, where it is said to be one of the fishes which “the
Indians have in greatest request.”—“_Poponaumsuog_” of R. Williams,
_l. c._, p. 225. He says, “Some call them frost-fish, from their
coming up from the sea into fresh brooks in times of frost and snow.”
[76] “Grampoise; Fr. _grandpoisson_;” corrupted grampus.—_Webster_,
_Dict._
[77] “These hollibut be little set by while bass is in
season.”—_Wood_, _l. c._, chap. ix.
[78] “The sea-hare is as big as grampus, or herrin-hog; and as white
as a sheet. There hath been of them in Black-Point Harbour, and some
way up the river; but we could never take any of them. Several have
shot sluggs at them, but lost their labour.”—_Voyages_, p. 105.
The _Lepus marinus_ of the old writers is a naked mollusk of the
Mediterranean; _Laplysia depilans_, L.: but Josselyn’s was a very
different animal.
[79] One of the fishes most valued by the Indians (p. 37); but “not
much set by” by the English, according to Wood, _l. c._
[80] “I have seene some myselfe that have weighed 16 pound; but
others have had, divers times, so great lobsters as have weighed
25 pound, as they assure me.”—_Higginson’s New-Eng. Plantation_,
_l. c._, p. 120; with which compare Gould’s Report, &c., p. 360.
“Their plenty makes them little esteemed, and seldom eaten.”—_Wood_,
_New-Eng. Prospect_, chap. ix. At p. 37, Josselyn counts them among
the fishes, &c., most esteemed by the Indians; but Wood (_l. c._)
qualifies this in a passage already cited. The Indians, it seems,
sometimes dried them, “as they do lampres and oysters; which are
delicate breakfast-meat so ordered.”—_Josselyn’s Voyages_, p. 110.
See the Indian way of catching lobsters, in Voyages, p. 140.
[81] “Munk-fish, a flat-fish like scate; having a hood like a fryer’s
cowl” (p. 96). _Lophius Americanus_, Cuv., the sea-devil of Storer
(Synops. of Amer. Fishes, in Mem. Amer. Acad., N. S., vol. ii. p.
381), is called monk-fish in Maine.—_Williamson_, _Hist._, vol. i. p.
157.
[82] See p. 97.
[83] “The muscle is of two sorts,—sea-muscles (in which they find
pearl) and river-muscles.”—_Voyages_, p. 110. See p. 37, of the
present volume, for an account of “the scarlet muscle,” which ...
“yieldeth a perfect purple or scarlet juice; dyeing linnen so that
no washing will wear it out,” &c. This could scarcely have been a
_Purpura_ or _Buccinum_.
[84] See Voyages, p. 110. “The oysters be great ones,” says Wood;
“in form of a shoe-horn: some be a foot long. These breed on certain
banks that are bare every spring-tide.”—_New-Eng. Prospect_, chap.
ix. This was in the waters of Massachusetts Bay, where Higginson
(New-Eng. Plantation, _l. c._, p. 120) also speaks of their being
found. The question whether the oyster is an indigenous inhabitant of
our bay, or only an introduced stranger, is considered by Dr. Gould
(Report on Invert. Animals of Mass., pp. 135, 365).
[85] One of the fishes “in greatest request” among the Indians (p.
37). Wood says it “is as good as it is in England, and in great
plenty in some places.”—_New-Eng. Prospect_, chap. ix.
[86] “The shads be bigger than the English shads, and
fatter.”—_Wood_, _l. c._
[87] “_Taut-auog_ (sheep’s-heads).” So Roger Williams’s Key, _l. c._,
p. 224. It is probable, therefore, that our author had the fish that
we call tautog in his mind here. What is now called sheep’s-head is
not known in Massachusetts Bay and northward.—_Storer_, _l. c._, p.
36.
[88] See p. 34; and Wood, _l. c._, chap. ix.
[89] See p. 96. It appears to be the mollusk, the shell of which is
well known as the razor-shell (_Solen ensis_, L.).—_Gould_, _Report_,
p. 28.
[90] See p. 32. “The sturgeons be all over the country; but the best
catching of them is upon the shoals of Cape Cod and in the river of
Merrimack, where much is taken, pickled, and brought to England. Some
of these be 12, 14, and 18 feet long.”—_Wood_, _New-Eng. Prospect_,
chap. ix. R. Williams says that “the natives, for the goodness
and greatness of it, much prize it; and will neither furnish the
English with so many, nor so cheap, that any great trade is like to
be made of it, until the English themselves are fit to follow the
fishing.”—_Key_, _l. c._, p. 224. It is one of Josselyn’s eight fish
which are in “greatest request” with the Indians (p. 37). He calls
“Pechipscut” River, in Maine, “famous for multitudes of mighty large
sturgeon.”—_Voyages_, p. 204.
[91] See Voyages, pp. 105-6.
[92] “This fish is much used for bait to catch a cod, hacke, polluck,
and the like sea-fish.”—_Voyages_, p. 107. It is still so used.
[93] Described at p. 95.
[94] See p. 34 of this, and p. 109 of the Voyages, where the author
says, “Of sea-turtles, there are five sorts; of land-turtles, three
sorts,—one of which is a right land-turtle, that seldom or never
goes into the water; the other two being the river-turtle and the
pond-turtle.”—See also the author’s observations on sea-turtles, at
p. 39 of the Voyages.
[95] “Trouts there be good store in every brook; ordinarily two
and twenty inches long. Their grease is good for the piles and
clifts.”—_Voyages_, p. 110.
[96] See Storer’s Report, p. 146.
[97] See p. 35; and Voyages, p. 104. “The natives cut them in several
parcel, and give and send them far and near for an acceptable present
or dish.”—_R. Williams_, _Key_, _l. c._, p. 224.
[98] See Voyages, p. 110. This is the common sea-egg; _Echinus
granulatus_, Say.—_Gould’s Rep._, p. 344.
[99] See p. 24 and note.
[100] Our author’s account of the fishes of New England may take this
of old Wood (N. E. Prospect, _l. c._) for a tail-piece. “The chief
fish for trade,” says he, “is a cod; but, for the use of the country,
there is all manner of fish, as followeth:—
“The king of waters,—the sea-shouldering Whale;
The snuffing Grampus, with the oily seal;
The storm-presaging Porpus, Herring-hog;
Line-shearing Shark, the Cat-fish, and Sea-dog;
The scale-fenced Sturgeon; wry-mouthed Hollibut;
The flouncing Salmon, Codfish, Greedigut;
Cole, Haddick, Hake, the Thornback, and the Scate,
(Whose slimy outside makes him seld’ in date;)
The stately Bass, old Neptune’s fleeting post,
That tides it out and in from sea to coast;
Consorting Herrings, and the bony Shad;
Big-bellied Alewives; Mackrels richly clad
With rainbow-colour, the Frost-fish and the Smelt,
As good as ever Lady Gustus felt;
The spotted Lamprons; Eels; the Lamperies,
That seek fresh-water brooks with Argus-eyes:
These watery villagers, with thousands more,
Do pass and repass near the verdant shore.”
[101] See p. 97.
[102] The account in the Voyages (pp. 114-23) is better; and Wood’s,
in New-England’s Prospect, chap. xi. (to which last, Josselyn was
possibly indebted), far better.
[103] See “the generating of these creatures,” in Voyages, p. 119.
“Here, likewise,” says Wood, “be great store of frogs, which, in the
spring, do chirp and whistle like a bird; and, at the latter end of
summer, croak like our English frogs.”—_N. Eng. Prospect_, _l. c._ In
his Voyages, Josselyn speaks (as Wood had done) of the tree-toad, and
also of another kind of toad; and of “the eft, or swift, ... a most
beautiful creature to look upon; being larger than ours, and painted
with glorious colours: but I lik’d him never the better for it” (p.
119).
[104] Wood’s account (New-Eng. Prospect, _l. c._) is worth comparing
with Higginson’s (New-England’s Plantation, _l. c._) and with
Josselyn’s, both here and at pp. 23 and 114 of the Voyages. Wood
justly says of this “most poisonous and dangerous creature,” that it
is “nothing so bad as the report goes of him.... He is naturally,” he
continues, “the most sleepy and unnimble creature that lives; never
offering to leap or bite any man, if he be not trodden on first: and
it is their desire, in hot weather, to lie in paths where the sun
may shine on them; where they will sleep so soundly, that I have
known four men to stride over them, and never awake her.... Five or
six men,” he adds, “have been bitten by them; which, by using of
snake-weed” (compare the preface to this, p. 119), “were all cured;
never any yet losing his life by them. Cows have been bitten; but,
being cut in divers places, and this weed thrust into their flesh,
were cured. I never heard of any beast that was yet lost by any of
them, saving one mare” (_l. c._). Of other serpents, Wood mentions
the black snake; and Josselyn, in his Voyages (_l. c._), speaks of
“infinite numbers, of various colours;” and especially of “one sort
that exceeds all the rest; and that is the checkquered snake, having
as many colours within the checkquers shadowing one another as there
are in a rainbow.” He says again, “The water-snake will be as big
about the belly as the calf of a man’s leg” which is, perhaps, the
water-adder. Josselyn adds, “I never heard of any mischief that
snakes did” (_l. c._); and so Wood: “Neither doth any other kind of
snakes” (the rattle-snake always excepted, as no doubt dangerous
when trodden on) “molest either man or beast.” There are perhaps no
worse prejudices in common life, than those which breed cruelty. In
the Voyages (p. 23), our author makes mention “of a sea-serpent, or
snake, that lay quoiled up like a cable upon a rock at Cape Ann. A
boat passing by with English aboard, and two Indians, they would have
shot the serpent: but the Indians disswaded them; saying, that, if
he were not kill’d outright, they would be all in danger of their
lives.” This was from “some neighbouring gentlemen in our house, who
came to welcome me into the countrey;” and it seems, that, “amongst
variety of discourse, they told me also of a young lyon (not long
before) killed at Piscataway by an Indian;” which, indeed, was
possibly not without foundation. And as to the serpent, compare a
Report of a Committee of the Linnæan Society of New England relative
to a large marine animal, supposed to be a serpent, seen near Cape
Ann, Mass., in August, 1817 (Boston, 1817); which contains also a
full account of a smaller animal—supposed not to differ, even in
species, from the large—which was taken on the rocks of Cape Ann.—See
also Storer, Report on the Reptiles of Mass.; Supplement, p. 410.
[105] The author continues his entomological observations, in
his Voyages, p. 115; and the account is fuller than Wood’s;
_New-England’s Prospect_, chap. xi.
[106] Gerard by Johnson, p. 17,—_Carex flava_, L.; the first species
of this genus indicated in North America, and common also to Europe.
There is no doubt of the reference, taking Josselyn’s name to be
meant for specific, and to refer to Gerard’s first figure with the
same name. But it is certainly possible that our author had in view
only a general reference to Gerard’s fourteenth chapter, “Of Hedgehog
Grasse,” which brings together plants of very different genera; and,
in this case, his name is of little account. Cutler (Account of
Indig. Veg., _l. c._, 1785) mentions three genera of _Cyperaceæ_, but
not _Carex_; nor did he ever publish that description of our true
_Gramineæ_ “and other native grasses,” which, he says (_l. c._, p.
407), “may be the subject of another paper.” The first edition of
Bigelow’s Florula Bostoniensis (1814) has seven species of _Carex_,
which are increased to seventeen in the second edition (1824); the
list embracing the most common and conspicuous forms. The genus
has since been made an object of special study, and the number of
our species, in consequence, greatly increased. A list of Carices
of the neighborhood of Boston, published by the present writer in
1841 (Hovey’s Mag. Hort.), gives forty-seven species; and Professor
Dewey’s Report on the Herbaceous Plants of Massachusetts, in 1840,
reckons ninety-one species within the limits of his work.
[107] Johnson’s Gerard, p. 42,—English matweed, or helme (the
other species being excluded, as not English, by our author’s
caption); which I take to be _Calamagrostis arenaria_ (L.) Roth,
of Gray, Man., p. 548; called sea-matweed in England, and common
to Europe and America. But if the author only intended to refer to
Gerard’s “Chapter 34, of Mat-weed,”—which is perhaps, on the whole,
unlikely,—his name is of no value.
[108] Gerard, p. 46,—_Typha latifolia_, L.,—common to America and
Europe.
[109] Gerard, p. 47,—_Stellaria graminea_, L.; for which our
author mistook, as did Cutler a century after, the nearly akin _S.
longifolia_, Muhl.
[110] Appears not to be meant for a specific reference to any of
Gerard’s species; but only an indication of the genus, with the
single distinguishing character of color, which was enough to
separate the New-England plants from the only British one referred by
Gerard to Iris. Both of our blue-flags are peculiar to the country.
[111] Not one of Gerard’s bastard daffodils, but his dog’s-tooth, p.
204 (_Erythronium_, L.). Our common dog’s-tooth was at first taken
for a variety of the European, but is now reckoned distinct.
[112] Gerard, p. 205,—_Orchis_, L., etc. It is here clear that the
name is used only in a general way. The second name (_Satyrion_),
perhaps, however, makes our author’s notion a little more definite,
and permits us to refer the plants he had probably in view to species
of _Platanthera_, Rich. (Gray, Man., p. 444), of which only one is
certainly known to be common to us and Europe.
[113] Gerard, em. p. 257,—_Nasturtium officinale_, L. Reckoned also
by Cutler, and indeed naturalized in some parts of the country
(Gray, Man., p. 30); but our author had probably _N. palustre_, DC.
(marsh-cress), if any thing of this genus, and not rather _Cardamine
hirsuta_, L. (hairy lady’s smock), in his mind. Both the last are
common to us and Europe.—_Gray_, _l. c._
[114] Gerard, p. 192. _Lilium bulbiferum_ (the garden red lily)
is meant; for which our author mistook our own red lily (_L.
Philadelphicum_, L.).
[115] Of the two plants,—either of which may possibly have been in
view of the author here,—the sorrell du bois, or white wood-sorrel of
Gerard, p. 1101 (_Oxalis acetosella_, L.) which is truly common to
Europe and America, and the sheep’s sorrel (Gerard, p. 397,—_Rumex
acetosella_, L.), which inhabits, indeed, the whole northern
hemisphere, but is taken by Dr. Gray to be a naturalized weed here,
I incline to think the latter less likely to have escaped Josselyn’s
attention than the former, and to be what he means to say appeared to
him as native, in 1671. For the yellow wood-sorrel, see farther on.
[116] Gerard, em., p. 404,—_Ophioglossum vulgatum_, L.; common to us
and Europe.
[117] Gerard, em., p. 409,—_Smilacina bifolia_ (L.), Ker; common to
us and Europe.
[118] Gerard, em., p. 410. A mistake of our author’s, which can
hardly be set right. The station is against the plant’s having been
_Smilacina trifolia_ (L.), Desf. But it may be that _Clintonia
borealis_ (Ait.) Raf., was intended.
[119] _Alisma plantago_, L., common to Europe and America; “called,
in New England, water suck-leaves and scurvie-leaves. You must lay
them whole to the leggs to draw out water between the skin and the
flesh.”—_Josselyn’s Voyages_, p. 80. As to its medicinal properties,
see Gerard, p. 419; and Wood and Bache, Dispens., p. 1293.
[120] _Plantago maritima_, L. (Gerard, p. 423), a native of Europe
and America, is our only sea-plantain. One of the others was probably
_Triglochin_.
[121] _Sagittaria sagittifolia_, L. (now called arrowhead), common to
Europe and America; though here passing into some varieties which are
unknown in the European Floras.
[122] _Gentiana saponaria_, L., peculiar to America, but nearly
akin to the European _G. pneumonanthe_, L., which our author
intended.—_Johnson’s Gerard_, _edit. cit._, p. 438.
[123] The plant is green hellebore (_Veratrum viride_, Ait.); so
near, indeed, to the white hellebore (_V. album_, L.) of Europe, that
it was taken for it by Michaux. In his Voyages, the author, after
speaking of the use of opium by the Turks, says, “The English in New
England take white hellebore, which operates as fairly with them as
with the Indians,” &c. (p. 60); and see p. 76, further.
[124] _Polygonum lapathifolium_, L. (_Hydropiper_ of Gerard, p.
445),—for which, perhaps, _P. hydropiper_, L., was mistaken,—and
_P. Persicaria_, L. (_Persicaria maculosa_ of Gerard, _l. c._),
are what the author means; being the two sorts figured by Gerard
himself. The third, added by Johnson, is unknown in this country;
and the fourth belongs to a very different genus. _P. Persicaria_ is
marked as introduced in the late Mr. Oakes’s catalogue of the plants
of Vermont; and both this and _P. hydropiper_ are considered to be
naturalized weeds by Dr. Gray (Man., p. 373). Josselyn’s testimony as
to the former, as appearing to him to be native in 1671, is therefore
not without interest; and possibly it is not quite worthless as to
the latter.
[125] _Chamæsyce_, or spurge-time, of Gerard (_edit. cit._, p. 504),
is _Euphorbia chamæsyce_, L., a species belonging to the Eastern
continent; for which Sloane (_cit. L. Sp. Pl. in loco_) appears to
have mistaken our _Euphorbia maculata_, L.; while Plukenet (_Alm.
372_, _cit. L._) recognizes the affinity of the same plants, calling
the latter _Chamæsyce altera Virginiana_. Josselyn’s spurge-time may
be _E. maculata_; but quite possibly, taking the station which he
gives into the account, _E. polygonifolia_, L.
[126] There are “several sorts of spurge,” according to the Voyages
(p. 78); of which this, which I cannot specifically refer, is
possibly one.
[127] To this species of _Saxifraga_, L., unknown to our _Flora_
(Gerard, p. 528), our author, with little doubt, referred the pretty
_S. Virginiensis_, Michx.—See p. 58 of this, note.
[128] Gerard, em., p. 535,—_Salicornia herbacea_, L. But Linnæus
referred one of Clayton’s Virginia specimens (the rest he did not
distinguish from _S. herbacea_) to a variety, _β. Virginica_ (which
he took to be also European; _Sp. Pl._), and afterwards raised this
to a species, as _S. Virginica_, _Syst. Nat._, vol. ii. p. 52,
Willd. _Sp. Pl._, vol. i. p. 25. To this the more common glasswort
of our salt marshes is to be referred; and we possess, beside, a
still better representative of the European plant in _S. mucronata_,
Bigel. (_Fl. Bost._, edit. 2, p. 2), which may perhaps best be taken
for a peculiar variety (_S. herbacea_, _β. mucronata_, articulorum
dentibus squamisque mucronatis, _Enum. Pl. Cantab._, Ms.; and _S.
Virginica_ may well be another) of a species common to us and Europe.
It is certain that we have plants strictly common to American and
European Floras, in which the differences referable to difference
of atmospheric and other like conditions are either not apparent or
of no account; and it is possible that there are yet other species,
now considered peculiar to America, which only differ from older
European species in those characters—whether of exuberance mostly,
or also of impoverishment—in which an American variety of a plant,
common to America and Europe, might beforehand be expected to differ
from an European state of the same. “Linnæus ut Tournefortii errores
corrigeret, varietates nimis contraxit.”—_Link_, _Phil. Bot._, p. 222.
[129] _Hypericum perforatum_, L. (“_Hypericum_, _S. John’s-wort_; in
shops, _Perforata_.”—_Gerard_, _edit. cit._, p. 539). The species is
considered to have been introduced, by most American authors; and it
is possible that Josselyn had _H. corymbosum_, Muhl., in his mind.
[130] _Hypericum quadrangulum_, L. (Gerard, p. 542); for which our
author doubtless mistook _H. mutilum_, L. (_H. parviflorum_, Willd.),
a species peculiar to America; to which Cutler’s _H. quadrangulum_
(Account of Indig. Veg., _l. c._, p. 474) is probably also to be
referred.
[131] _Veronica arvensis_, L. (Gerard, p. 613),—a native, at present,
of Europe, Asia, Northern Africa, and North America (Benth., in DC.
Prodr., vol. x. p. 482); but considered to have been introduced here.
[132] _Veronica_, L. The species is perhaps _V. officinalis_, L.;
which, together with _V. serpyllifolia_, L., is considered by Prof.
Gray to be both indigenous and introduced here.—_Man. Bot._, pp.
200-1.
[133] _Hedeoma pulegioides_ (L.) Pers. (American pennyroyal), is
doubtless meant. The specific name indicates its resemblance—in smell
and taste particularly—to _Mentha pulegium_, L.; for which our author
and Cutler (_l. c._, p. 461) mistook it. But the former is peculiar
to America.
[134] _Mentha aquatica_, L. _Sp. Pl._ (Gerard, p. 684); for which it
is likely our author (and also Cutler, _l. c._, p. 460) mistook _M.
Canadensis_, L., Gray.
[135] _Nepeta cataria_, L. (Gerard, em., p. 682); considered by
American botanists to have been introduced from Europe.
[136] _Agrimonia Eupatoria_, L. (Gerard, em., p. 712); common to
America and Europe.
[137] _Xanthium strumarium_, L., Gray (Gerard, p. 809); common, as a
species, to both continents; but in part, also, introduced.—_Gray_,
_Man._, p. 212.
[138] _Nuphar advena_, Ait.,—the common American species,—is meant;
and this, though resembling _N. lutea_, Sm., of Europe, is distinct
from it.
[139] _Arum_, L. (Gerard, p. 381). The New-England species “differ,”
as our author says, “from all the kinds” in the Old World.
[140] None of the species, presumably here meant, are common to
America and Europe. Our author’s white violet is _Viola blanda_,
Willd.
[141] All our true honeysuckles (“woodbinde, or honisuckles,”—Gerard,
p. 891; _Caprifolium_, Juss.) are distinct from those of Europe; but
what the author meant here is uncertain.
[142] _Convallaria_, L.; _Polygonatum_, Tourn.; _Smilacina_, Desf.
Many botanists have referred our smaller Solomon’s seal to the
nearly akin _C. multiflora_ of Europe; but Dr. Gray (Manual, p. 466)
pronounces the former a distinct American species. The second of
Josselyn’s species is the “_Polygonatum Virginianum_, or Virginian’s
Salomon’s seale” of Johnson’s Gerard (p. 905), and also of Morison
(Hist., _cit. L._), and earliest described and figured by Cornuti
as _P. Canadense, &c._, which is _Smilacina stellata_, (L.) Desf.;
peculiar to America. The third is set down by our author, at p.
56, among the “plants proper to the country;” and Wood (New-Eng.
Prospect, chap. v.) mentions it among eatable wild fruits, by the
same name. It is probably _Smilacina racemosa_, (L.) Desf.,—a
suggestion which I owe to my friend Rev. J. L. Russell’s notes upon
Josselyn’s plants, in Hovey’s Magazine (March, April, and May, 1858);
papers which were published after the manuscript of this edition had
passed from the hands of the editor,—and is also confined to this
continent.
[143] _Geranium_, L. The first is _G. Carolinianum_, L., which
nearly resembles Gerard’s dove’s-foot (p. 938); the second is _G.
Robertianum_, L., common to us and Europe; and the third (Gerard, p.
940)—which cannot be _G. dissectum_—was meant, it is likely to be
taken for synonymous with the fourth, or raven’s-claw,—doubtless our
lovely _G. maculatum_, L., which belongs to that group of species
which the old botanists distinguished by the common name _Geranium
batrachioides_, or crow-foot geranium, which flowers in May, and is
of well-known value in medicine; and the “knobby” root, attributed to
Josselyn’s third kind, favors this opinion.
[144] The genus _Potentilla_, L., in general, is perhaps intended
by cinque-foil; and although our author probably confounded the
common and variable _Potentilla Canadensis_, L., with the nearly
akin _P. reptans_ and _P. verna_, L., of Europe, yet the larger part
of our New-England species are, with little doubt, common to both
continents. What Josselyn referred to _Tormentilla_, L.,—a genus
not now separated from _Potentilla_,—was probably a state of _P.
Canadensis_, which resembles _P. reptans_, L., as remarked above (and
was, indeed, mistaken for it by Cutler,—_l. c._, p. 453), as this
does _Tormentilla reptans_, L.
[145] _Geum strictum_, Ait.,—not found in England, but European
(Gray, Man., p. 116),—is indicated by the author’s phrase; and see
the Voyages, p. 78, for his opinion of its medicinal virtue.
[146] _Fragaria vesca_, L. (the common wood-strawberry of Europe), is
native here, according to Oakes (Catal. Verm., p. 12), “especially on
mountains;” and I have even gathered it, but possibly naturalized,
on the woody banks of Fresh Pond in Cambridge. Our more common
strawberry was not separated from the European by Linnæus, but is
now reckoned a distinct species. “There is likewise strawberries in
abundance,” says Wood (New-England’s Prospect, _l. c._),—“very large
ones; some being two inches about. One may gather half a bushel
in a forenoon.”—“This berry,” says Roger Williams (Key, in Hist.
Coll., vol. iii. p. 221), “is the wonder of all the fruits growing
naturally in those parts. It is of itself excellent; so that one of
the chiefest doctors of England was wont to say, that God could have
made, but God never did make, a better berry. In some parts, where
the natives have planted, I have many times seen as many as would
fill a good ship, within few miles’ compass. The Indians bruise them
in a mortar, and mix them with meal, and make strawberry-bread.”
Gookin also speaks of Indian-bread.—_Mass. Hist. Coll._, vol. i. p.
150.
[147] The two plants here intended, and supposed by the author to
correspond with the “wild angelica” and “great wilde angelica” of
Gerard (pp. 999-1000), may perhaps be taken for the same which
Cornuti (_Canad. Pl. Hist._, pp. 196-200), thirty years before, had
designated as new,—Josselyn’s _Angelica sylvestris minor_ being
_Angelica lucida Canadensis_ of Cornuti, which is _A. lucida_, L.
(and probably, as the French botanist describes the fruit as “minus
foliacea vulgaribus,” also _Archangelica peregrina_, Nutt.); and his
_Angelica sylvestris major_ being _A. atropurpurea Canadensis_ of
Cornuti, or _A. atropurpurea_, L.
[148] _Smyrnium aureum_, L. (golden Alexanders), now separated
from that genus, was mistaken, it is quite likely, for _S.
olusatrum_, L. (true Alexanders), to which it bears a considerable
resemblance.—_Gerard_, p. 1019.
[149] _Achillea millefolium_, L. Oakes has marked this as introduced
(Catal. Vermont, p. 17): but it appeared to our author, in 1672, to
be indigenous; and Dr. Gray reckons it among plants common to both
hemispheres.—_Statistics of Amer. Flora_, in Am. Jour. Sci., vol.
xxiii. p. 70. The author’s reference is to common yarrow.—_Gerard_,
p. 1072.
[150] _Aquilegia Canadensis_, L. As elsewhere, the author probably
means here only that the genus is common to both continents.
[151] At p. 56, both of these are set down among the “plants
proper to the country.” The first, to follow Gerard (p. 1108), is
_Chenopodium botrys_, L.,—a native of the south of Europe, and
considered as an introduced species here. It has reputation in
diseases of the chest.—Wood & Bache, Dispens., p. 213. Josselyn’s oak
of Cappadocia (Gerard, p. 1108) is an American species,—_Ambrosia
elatior_, L. Cutler says of it (_l. c._, p. 489), “It has somewhat
the smell of camphire. It is used in antiseptick fomentations.”
[152] _Galium aparine_, L. (Gerard, _edit. cit._, p. 1122), common to
America and Europe.—Compare Gray, Man., p. 170.