[378] The stories first told in Europe of the Rattlesnake (Crotalus durissus) were of the most exaggerated kind. He was described as a reptile of prodigious size, which could fly, and which poisoned by its breath. (New England’s Prospect, p. 39.) The first mention of this snake in Massachusetts is found in Higginson’s New England’s Plantation [1630]. It is as follows: “This country being very full of woods and wildernesses, doth also much abound with snakes and serpents, of strange colors and huge greatness. Yea, there are some serpents, called rattlesnakes, that have rattles in their tails, that will not fly from a man as others will, but will fly upon him and sting him so mortally that he will die within a quarter of an hour after, except the party stinged have about him some of the root of an herb called snake-weed to bite on, and then he shall receive no harm.” (Young’s Chron. of Mass., p. 255.) Wood gives an admirable description of the rattlesnake (Prospect, pp. 38-9), and also speaks of “the Antidote to expel the poyson, which is a root caled Snake weede, which must be champed, the spittle swallowed, and the roote applied to the sore.... Five or six men have been bitten by them, which by using of snakeweede were all cured, never any yet losing his life by them.” Josselyn, in his Rarities (p. 39), says: “The Indians when weary with travelling, will take them up with their bare hands, laying hold with one hand behind their Head, with the other taking hold of their Tail, and with their teeth tear off the Skin of their backs, and feed upon them alive; which they say refresheth them.” He further says that the heart of the rattlesnake “swallowed fresh” (Rarities, p. 39), or “dried and pulverized and drunk with wine or beer” (Voyages, p. 114), is an antidote against its poison. In Clayton’s Virginia (III. Force’s Tracts, No. 12, p. 39), there is a very entertaining passage, too long to extract, on Rattlesnakes, and the use of East India snake-stones “that were sent [to Virginia] by King James the Second, the Queen, and some of the Nobility, purposely to try their Virtue and Efficacy,” at curing the bite of vipers, &c.
[379] The Mice, which our author found in “good store,” belong chiefly to three species,—namely, the common short-tailed Meadow Mouse (Arvicola riparius), the White-footed Mouse, or Deer Mouse (Hesperomys leucopus), and the Long-tailed Jumping Mouse, or Kangaroo Mouse (Zapus Hudsonius). The common House Mouse (Mus musculus) is an exotic pest, which doubtless had not at that time made its appearance. Morton is quite right in stating: “but for Rats, the Country by Nature is troubled with none.” The Black Rat (Mus rattus) was quite early introduced, but the Gray, Wharf, or Norway Rat (Mus decumanus) probably did not make its appearance till fully a century after Morton wrote his New English Canaan.
[380] Morton, as was natural for a keen sportsman who had himself been in the tropics, was wiser on the subject of Lions than other Englishmen in New England. From the first landing at Plymouth, when John Goodman and Peter Browne, getting lost in the woods, heard “two lions roaring exceedingly,” down to 1639, when Josselyn heard “of a young Lyon (not long before) kill’d at Pascataway by an Indian,” there were vague stories of these animals having been either seen or heard in the New England woods. Josselyn argued on the great probability that there were lions because there were jackals (Rarities, p. 21); and Wood said that “the Virginians saw an old Lyon in their Plantation, who having lost his Iackall, which was wont to hunt his prey, was brought so poore that he could goe no further.” (Prospect, p. 17.) Strachey speaks of having found the skins and claws of lions in the hands of the Indians. (Historie, p. 124.) The animal referred to in all these cases was doubtless the Panther or Catamount (Felis concolor). On this subject see also Young’s Chron. of Pilg., p. 176, note; Tuckerman’s New England’s Rarities, p. 57, note; and the Mem. History of Boston, vol. i. p. 9.
[381] For the scientific and technical notes to this chapter I am indebted to Professor N. S. Shaler of Harvard University. As in the three preceding chapters, certain other notes of my own have been added, which are of a wholly different character, and will readily be distinguished from Professor Shaler’s.
[382] The marble of Marble Harbor, or Marblehead, is not, in the present sense of the word, a marble at all, but is, in fact, a porphyry. In the old sense of the word it designated any smooth-striped or spotted stones, such as are found there.
[383] No limestone, good or bad, is known to exist on the Monatoquit now; the nearest limestone is at Bear (or Bare) Hill, in Stoneham.
[384] There is a locality in East Braintree, included in the Wainwright estate, at the foot of Wyman’s Hill and facing the Weymouth Fore-river, into which the Monatoquit flows, where is a quarry from which stone bearing some external resemblance to limestone was formerly taken for ballast. This place has always been locally called the Quaw, though the origin and meaning of the name have never been known. It would seem that this must be the place referred to in the text, and that Quaw, or Quor, is a corruption of the Indian Attaquatock.
[385] There are no “chalke stones” at Squanto’s Chapelle, i.e., Squantum, or anywhere else in this part of the world. Morton may possibly have mistaken pebbles of decayed felspar for chalk.
[386] There is some slate in Quincy and Weymouth that might be used for roofing, and a quarry of it was long worked for material for gravestones, &c., on Squantum Bay, a mile or so from Mount Wollaston; but it is slate of a very poor sort. The nearest workable slate is in Vermont and Maine.
[387] This passage is more than usually confused, even for Morton. It is difficult to say whether he is perpetrating a clumsy joke, or indulging in a malicious insinuation. John Billington was hanged at Plymouth in September, 1630, being apparently the second person so executed in what is now Massachusetts, the first having been executed at Weymouth during the winter of 1622-3. (Infra, [*108-10].) The man shot by Billington, and for whose murder he was hung, was John New-comin (Bradford, p. 277), whence Morton’s play upon the name. Billington had two sons, but he was by no means “beloved.” As Bradford, writing about him as early as 1625, said, “he is a knave,” adding prophetically “and so will live and die.” (Savage’s Winthrop, vol. i. p. *36). Why Morton should have called him “Ould Woodman” is not clear. From his immediately going on to talk of the “woodden prospect,” and the wish of its author to secure for himself a monopoly of the Richmond Island whetstones, which “Ould Woodman labored to get a patent of,” it would seem as if he had intended to convey the idea that William Wood, the author of the New England’s Prospect, was one of the “many sonnes” of “Old Woodman,” who had been hanged at Plymouth. That such was Morton’s intention, however, is not clear. The passage is muddled, but not necessarily malicious.