[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.