The Pismire or Ant must not be forgotten, accounted the least Creature, and by Salomon commended for its wisdom, Prov. 30. 24, 25. Quatuor ista parva sunt humilia, tamen sunt sapientia, apprime sapientia: formicæ populus infirmus, quæ comparant æstate cibum suum, &c. There are two sorts, red Ants and black Ants, both of them are many times found winged; not long since they were poured upon the Sands out of the clouds in a storm betwixt Black-point and Saco, where the passenger might have walkt up to the Ankles in them.
The Grashopper is innumerable and bigger by much than ours in England, having Tinsel-wings, with help whereof they will flye and skip a great way. Next to these in number are your Crickets, a man can walk no where in the summer but he shall tread upon them; The Italian who hath them cryed up and down the streets (Grille che cantelo) and buyeth them to put into his Gardens, if he were in New-England would gladly be rid of them, they make such a dinn in an Evening. I could never discover the Organ of their voice, they have a little clift in their Crown which opens, and at the same instant they shake their wings.
[p. 119.] The Eft or Swift in New-England is 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.
Frogs too there are in ponds and upon dry land, they chirp like Birds in the spring, and latter end of summer croak like Toads. It is admirable to consider the generating of these Creatures, first they lay their gelly on the water in ponds and still waters, which comes in time to be full of black spots as broad as the head of a Ten-penny nail, and round, these separate themselves from the gleir, and after a while thrust out a tail, then their head comes forth, after their head springs out their fore-legs, and then their hinder-legs, then their tail drops off, and growes to have a head and four legs too, the first proves a frog, the latter a water nuet. The Herbalist useth to say by way of admiration, quælibet herba deum &c. So God is seen in the production of these small Creatures which are a part of the Creation; Laudate Jehovam cælites, laudate eum in excelsis, &c. Laudent nomen Jehovæ quæ ipso præcipiente illico creata sunt &c. ipsæ bestiæ & omnes jumenta, reptilia & aves alatæ, Psal. 148.
The Toad is of two sorts, one that is [p. 120.] speckled with white, and another of a dark earthy colour; there is of them that will climb up into Trees and sit croaking there; but whether it be of a third sort, or one of the other, or both, I am not able to affirm; but this I can testifie that there be Toads of the dark coloured kind that are as big as a groat loaf. Which report will not swell into the belief of my sceptique Sirs; nor that there is a Hell, being like Salomon’s fool, Prov. 26. 22. Sed si contunderes stultum in mortario cum mola pistillo, non recederet ab eo stultitia ejus.
Now before I proceed any further, I must (to prevent misconstructions) tell you that these following Creatures, though they be not properly accounted Serpents, yet they are venomous and pestilent Creatures. As, first the Rat, but he hath been brought in since the English came thither, but the Mouse is a Native, of which there are several kinds not material to be described; the Bat or flitter mouse is bigger abundance than any in England and swarm, which brings me to the insects or cut-wasted Creatures again, as first the honey-Bee, which are carried over by the English and thrive there exceedingly, in time they may be produced from Bullocks when the wild Beasts are destroyed. But the wasp is [p. 121.] common, and they have a sort of wild humble-Bee that breed in little holes in the earth. Near upon twenty years since there lived an old planter at Black-point, who on a Sun-shine day about one of the clock lying upon a green bank not far from his house, charged his Son, a lad of 12 years of age to awaken him when he had slept two hours, the old man falls asleep and lying upon his back gaped with his mouth wide enough for a Hawke to shit into it; after a little while the lad sitting by spied a humble-Bee creeping out of his Fathers mouth, which taking wing flew quite out of sight, the hour as the lad ghest being come to awaken his Father he jogg’d him and called aloud Father, Father, it is two a clock, but all would not rouse him, at last he sees the humble-Bee returning, who lighted upon the sleepers lip and walked down as the lad conceived into his belly, and presently he awaked.
The Countrey is strangely incommodated with flyes, which the English call Musketaes, they are like our gnats, they will sting so fiercely in summer as to make the faces of the English swell’d and scabby, as if the small pox for the first year. Likewise there is a small black fly no bigger than a flea, so numerous up in the Countrey, [p. 122.] that a man cannot draw his breath, but he will suck of them in: they continue about Thirty dayes say some, but I say three moneths, and are not only a pesterment but a plague to the Countrey. There is another sort of fly called a Gurnipper that are like our horse-flyes, and will bite desperately, making the bloud to spurt out in great quantity; these trouble our English Cattle very much, raising swellings as big as an egg in their hides. The Butterfly is of several sorts and larger than ours; So are their Dragon-flyes. Glow-worms have here wings, there are multitudes of them insomuch that in the dark evening when I first went into the Countrey I thought the whole Heavens had been on fire, seeing so many sparkles flying in the air: about Mount-Carmel, and the valley of Acree in the Holy-land there be abundance of them.
These are taken for Cantharides. Cantharides are green flyes by day, in the night they pass about like a flying Glow-worm with fire in their tails.
I have finished now my relation of plants, &c. I have taken some pains in recollecting of them to memory, and setting of them down for their benefit from whom I may expect thanks; but I believe my [p. 123.] reward will be according to Ben Johnsons proverbs, Whistle to a Jade and he will pay you with a fart, Claw a churl by the britch and he will shit in your fist.
The people that inhabited this Countrey are judged to be of the Tartars called Samonids that border upon Moscovia, and are divided into Tribes; those to the East and North-east are called Churchers and Tarentines, and Monhegans. To the South are the Pequets and Narragansets. Westward Connecticuts and Mowhacks. To the Northward Aberginians which consist of Mattachusets, Wippanaps and Tarrentines. The Pocanokets live to the West-ward of Plimouth. Not long before the English came into the Countrey, happened a great mortality amongst them, especially where the English afterwards planted, the East and Northern parts were sore smitten with the Contagion; first by the plague, afterwards when the English came by the small pox, the three Kingdoms or Sagamorships of the Mattachusets were very populous, having under them seven Dukedoms or petti-Sagamorships, but by the plague were brought from 30000 to 300. There are not many now to the Eastward, the Pequots were destroyed by the English: the Mowhacks are about five hundred: Their speech a dialect of the Tartars, [p. 124.] (as also is the Turkish tongue). There is difference between Tongues and Languages, the division of speech at Babel is most properly called Languages, the rest Tongues.