[341] Probably the Crow Blackbird (Quiscalus purpureus æneus).
[342] The Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter fuscus), a common New England species closely allied to the European Sparrow Hawk (Accipiter nisus). Our Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperi) also may be referred to under this name.
[343] The Ruby-throated Humming-bird (Trochilus colubris), our only New England species. The Humming-birds are peculiar to the New World; hence the wonder and interest with which they were regarded by the early explorers and colonists. There is a letter from Emanuel Downing to John Winthrop, Jr., of the 21st of November, 1632, in which is this paragraph: “You have a litle bird in your contrie that makes a humminge noyse, a little bigger then a bee, I pray send me one of them over, perfect in his fethers, in a little box.” (IV. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. vi. p. 40e.) There are many descriptions of this bird in the earlier writers, though none that I have found so early as Downing’s letter. Wood says: “The Humbird is one of the wonders of the Countrey, being no bigger than a Hornet, yet hath all the dimensions of a Bird, as bill and wings, with quils, Spider-like legges, small clawes: For colour, shee is glorious as the Raine-bow; as shee flies, shee makes a little humming noise like a humble bee: wherefore she is called the Humbird.” (New England’s Prospect, p. 24.) Josselyn’s description is especially good: “The Humming Bird, the least of all Birds, little bigger than a Dor, of variable glittering Colours, they feed upon Honey, which they suck out of Blossoms and Flowers with their long Needle-like Bills; they sleep all Winter, and are not to be seen till the Spring, at which time they breed in little Nests, made up like a bottom of soft, Silk-like matter, their Eggs no bigger than a white Pease, they hatch three or four at a time, and are proper to this Country.” (New England’s Rarities, p. 6.) See also Clayton’s Letter, &c. (III. Force’s Tracts, No. 12, p. 33).
[344] For all the technical and scientific notes to this chapter I am indebted to Mr. Joel A. Allen, of the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy of Harvard College. To the matter contributed by him I have merely added, as in the immediately preceding chapters, extracts from other writers, more or less contemporaneous with Morton, which seemed to me to be illustrative of the text, or in the same spirit with it. This chapter of Morton’s is more complete, though probably of less value, than Wood’s and Josselyn’s chapters on the same subject.
[345] The Elke here mentioned is the Moose (Alces malchis) of American writers; it is specifically the same as the elk of Northern Europe. From Wood’s account (New England’s Prospect, p. 18), it would seem that the moose in Morton’s time ranged into eastern Massachusetts, though not found now south of northern Maine. The moose has but a single fawn at a birth, not three as stated in the text.
Mr. Allen then adds to the above note: “I have met with no published record of the occurrence of the American Elk, or Wapiti Deer (Cervus Canadensis), in eastern Massachusetts. Since publishing a statement to this effect (Mem. Hist. Boston, vol. i. p. 10), however, I have learned through the kindness of a correspondent (Henry S. Nourse, Esq., of South Lancaster, Mass.,) that early in the eighteenth century sixteen elk were seen near a brook in South Lancaster, one of which was killed. The tradition is supported by the fact that the antlers of the individual killed were preserved in the family of the lucky hunter (Jonas Fairbanks) for a long period, and afterwards placed on the top of a guide-board, where they still remain, moss-grown and weather-worn by eighty years of sun and storm. Since the receipt of Mr. Nourse’s letter (dated Feb. 25, 1882), his account has been corroborated by information from another source. That the antlers mentioned belonged to an elk and not to a moose is beyond question.”
[346] “The English have some thoughts of keeping them tame, and to accustome them to the yoake, which will be a great commoditie: First, because they are so fruitfull, bringing forth three at a time, being likewise very uberous. Secondly, because they will live in Winter without any fodder. There be not many of these in the Massachusetts Bay, but forty miles to the Northeast there be great store of them.” (New England’s Prospect, p. 18.) There are very good descriptions of the Moose, and the methods pursued in hunting them, in Gorges’s Brief Relation (II. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. ix. p. 18) and in Josselyn’s Two Voyages, (pp. 88, 137). See, also, New England’s Rarities, p. 19.
[347] The common Virginian Deer (Cariacus Virginianus), formerly more or less abundant throughout the eastern half of the United States.
[348] The number of fawns produced at a birth is commonly two, sometimes one, and still more rarely three; although three is stated to be the usual number in various seventeenth-century accounts of the natural productions of New England, Virginia, &c.
[349] Mourt, in his Relation (p. 8), records how Governor William Bradford, of Plymouth, was caught in one of these traps, and “horsed up by the leg,” when the first party from the Mayflower was exploring Cape Cod in November, 1620. Wood says: “An English Mare being strayed from her owner, and growne wild by her long sojourning in the woods ranging up and down with the wild crew, stumbled into one of these traps which stopt her speed, hanging her like Mahomet’s tombe, betwixt earth and heaven; the morning being come the Indians went to looke what good successe their Venison trapps had brought them, but seeing such a long scutted Deere, praunce in their Meritotter, they bade her good morrow, crying out, what cheere what cheere, Englishmans squaw horse; having no better epithete than to call her a woman horse, but being loath to kill her, and as fearefull to approach neere the friscadoes of her Iron heeles, they posted to the English to tell them how the case stood or hung with their squaw horse, who unhorsed their Mare, and brought her to her former tamenesse, which since hath brought many a good foale, and performed much good service.” (New England’s Prospect, p. 75.) Williams, in his Key (ch. xxvii.), describes how the deer caught in these traps were torn and devoured by wolves before the Indians came to secure them. See, also, Colonel Norwood’s Voyage to Virginia. (III. Force’s Tracts, No. 10, p. 39.)