[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.