[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.