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, I have seen a flight of Pidgeons in the spring, and at Michaelmas when they return back to the Southward for four or five miles, that to my thinking had neither beginning nor ending, length nor breadth, and so thick that I could see no Sun, they joyn Nest to Nest, and Tree to Tree by their Nests many miles together in Pine-Trees. But of late they are much diminished, the English taking them with Nets. I have bought at Boston a dozen of Pidgeons ready pull’d and garbidgd for three pence, [p. 100.] Ring-Doves they say are there too, but I could never see any.
The Snow-Bird is like a Chaf-Finch, go in flocks and are good meat.
The singing Birds are Thrushes with red breasts, which will be very fat and are good meat, so are the Thressels, Filladies are 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, Wag-tail, 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, Wood-Peckers of two or three sorts, gloriously set out with variety of glittering colours. The Colibry, Viemalin, or rising or waking Bird, an Emblem of the Resurrection, and the wonder of little Birds.
The water-fowl are these that follow, Hookers or wild-Swans, Cranes, Geese of three sorts, grey, white, and the brant Goose, the first and last are best meat, the white are [p. 101.] lean and tough and live a long time; whereupon the proverb, Older than a white Goose; of the skins of the necks of grey Geese with their Bills the Indians makes Mantles and Coverlets sowing them together and they shew prettily. There be 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, Divers or Didapers, or Dip-chicks, 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, Wobbles, Loones, Gulls, white Gulls, or Sea-Cobbs, Caudemandies, Herons, grey Bitterns, Ox-eyes, Birds called Oxen and Keen, Petterels, Kings fishers, which breed in the spring in holes in the Sea-banks, being unapt to propagate in Summer, by reason of the driness of their bodies, which becomes more moist when their pores are closed by cold. Most of these Fowls and Birds are eatable. There are little Birds that frequent the Sea-shore in flocks called Sanderlins, [p. 102.] 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 the English cut them into small pieces to put into their Puddings instead of suet, I have known twelve score and above kill’d at two shots. I have not done yet, we must not forget the Cormorant, Shape or Sharke; though I cannot commend them to our curious palats, the Indians will eat them when they are fley’d, they take them prettily, they roost in the night upon some Rock that lyes out in the Sea, thither the Indian goes in his Birch-Canow when the Moon shines clear, and when he is come almost to it, he lets his Canow drive on of it self, when he is come under the Rock he shoves his Boat along till he come just under the Cormorants watchman, the rest being asleep, and so soundly do sleep that they will snore like so many Piggs; the Indian thrusts up his hand of a sudden, grasping the watchman so hard round about his neck that he cannot cry out; as soon as he hath him in his Canow he wrings off his head, and making his Canow fast, he clambreth to the top of the Rock, where walking softly he takes them up as he pleaseth, still wringing off their heads; when he hath slain as many as his Canow can carry, he gives a shout [p. 103.] which awakens the surviving Cormorants, who are gone in an instant.
The next Creatures that you are to take notice of, are they that live in the Element of water. Pliny reckons them to be of 177 kinds, but certainly if it be true that there is no Beast upon Earth, which hath not his like in the Sea, and which (perhaps) is not in some part parallel’d in the plants of the Earth; we may by a diligent search find out many more: of the same opinion is the Poet, who saith that it is
Affirm’d by some that what on Earth we find,
The Sea can parallell in shape and kind.
Divine Dubertus goes further.