Secondly, of Beasts45
The Bear, which are generally Black.46
The Bear, they live four months in Caves, that is all Winter; in the Spring they bring forth their young ones, they seldome have above three Cubbs in a litter, are very fat in the Fall of the Leaf with feeding upon Acorns, at which time they are excellent Venison; their Brains are venomous; They feed much upon water Plantane in the Spring and Summer, and Berries, and also upon a shell-fish called a Horse-foot; and are never mankind, i.e. fierce, but in rutting time, and then they walk the Country twenty, thirty, forty in a company, making a hideous noise with roaring, which you may hear a mile or two before they come so near to endanger the Traveller. About four years since, Acorns being very scarce up in the Country, some numbers of them came down amongst the English Plantations, which generally are by the Sea side; at one Town called Gorgiana in the Province of Meyn (called also New-Sommerset-shire) they kill’d fourscore.
For Aches and Cold Swellings.
Their Grease is very good for Aches and Cold Swellings, the Indians anoint themselves therewith from top to toe, which hardens them against the cold weather. A black Bears Skin heretofore was worth forty shillings, now you may have one for ten, much used by the English for Beds and Coverlets, and by the Indians for Coats.
For Pain and Lameness upon Cold.
One Edw. Andrews being foxt,47 and falling backward cross a Thought48 in a Shallop or Fisher-boat, and taking cold upon it, grew crooked, lame, and full of pain, was cured, lying one Winter upon Bears Skins newly flead off, with some upon him, so that he sweat every night.
The Wolf.49
The Wolf, of which there are two kinds; one with a round-ball’d Foot, and are in shape like mungrel Mastiffs; the other with a flat Foot, these are liker Greyhounds, and are called Deer Wolfs, because they are accustomed to prey upon Deer. A Wolf will eat a Wolf new dead, and so do Bears as I suppose, for their dead Carkases are never found, neither by the Indian nor English. They go a clicketing twelve days, and have as many Whelps at a Litter as a Bitch. The Indian Dog50 is a Creature begotten ’twixt a Wolf and a Fox, which the Indians lighting upon, bring up to hunt the Deer with. The Wolf is very numerous, and go in companies, sometimes ten, twenty, more or fewer, and so cunning, that seldome any are kill’d with Guns or Traps; but of late they have invented a way to destroy them, by binding four Maycril Hooks a cross with a brown thread, and then wrapping some Wool about them, they dip them in melted Tallow till it be as round and as big as an Egg; these (when any Beast hath been kill’d by the Wolves) they scatter by the dead Carkase, after they have beaten off the Wolves; about Midnight the Wolves are sure to return again to the place where they left the slaughtered Beast, and the first thing they venture upon will be these balls of fat.
For old Aches.
A black Wolfs Skin is worth a Beaver Skin among the Indians, being highly esteemed for helping old Aches in old people, worn as a Coat; they are not mankind, as in Ireland and other Countries, but do much harm by destroying of our English Cattle.
The Ounce.51
The Ounce or Wild Cat, is about the bigness of two lusty Ram Cats, preys upon Deer and our English Poultrey: I once found six whole Ducks in the belly of one I killed by a Pond side: Their flesh roasted is as good as Lamb, and as white.
For Aches and shrunk Sinews.
Their Grease is soveraign for all manner of Aches and shrunk Sinews: Their Skins are accounted good Fur, but somewhat course.
The Raccoon.52
The Raccoon liveth in hollow trees, and is about the size of a Gib Cat; they feed upon Mass, and do infest our Indian Corn very much; they will be exceeding fat in Autumn; their flesh is somewhat dark, but good food roasted.
For Bruises and Aches.
Their Fat is excellent for bruises and Aches. Their Skins are esteemed a good deep Fur; but yet as the Wild Cats somewhat coarse.
The Porcupine.
The Porcupine, in some parts of the Countrey Eastward towards the French, are as big as an ordinary Mungrel Cur; a very angry Creature, and dangerous, shooting a whole shower of Quills with a rowse at their enemies, which are of that nature, that wherever they stick in the flesh, they will work through in a short time, if not prevented by pulling of them out. The Indians make use of their Quills, which are hardly a handful long, to adorn the edges of their birchen dishes, and weave (dying some of them red, others yellow and blew) curious bags or pouches, in works like Turkie-work.53
The Beaver, Canis Ponticus, Amphybious.54
The Beaver, whose old ones are as big as an Otter, or rather bigger, a Creature of a rare instinct, as may apparently be seen in their artificial Dam-heads to raise the water in the Ponds where they keep, and their houses having three stories, which would be too large to discourse.54 They have all of them four Cods hanging outwardly between their hinder legs, two of them are soft or oyly, and two solid or hard; the Indians say they are Hermaphrodites.
For Wind in the Stomach.
Their solid Cods are much used in Physick: Our Englishwomen in this Country use the powder grated, as much as will lye upon a shilling in a draught of Fiol Wine, for Wind in the Stomach and Belly, and venture many times in such cases to give it to Women with Child: Their Tails are flat, and covered with Scales without hair, which being flead off, and the Tail boiled, proves exceeding good meat, being all Fat, and as sweet as Marrow.
The Moose-Deer.55
The Moose Deer, which is a very goodly Creature, some of them twelve foot high, with exceeding fair Horns with broad Palms, some of them two fathom from the tip of one Horn to the other; they commonly have three Fawns at a time, their flesh is not dry like Deers flesh, but moist and lushious somewhat like Horse flesh (as they judge that have tasted of both) but very wholsome. The flesh of their Fawns is an incomparable dish, beyond the flesh of an Asses Foal so highly esteemed by the Romans, or that of young Spaniel Puppies so much cried up in our days in France and England.
Moose Horns better for Physick Use than Harts Horns.
Their Horns are far better (in my opinion) for Physick than the Horns of other Deer, as being of a stronger nature: As for their Claws, which both Englishmen and French make use of for Elk, I cannot approve so to be from the Effects, having had some trial of it; besides, all that write of the Elk describe him with a tuft of hair on the left Leg behind, a little above the pastern joynt on the outside of the Leg, not unlike the tuft (as I conceive) that groweth upon the breast of a Turkie Cock, which I could never yet see upon the Leg of a Moose, and I have seen some number of them.
For Children breeding Teeth.
The Indian Webbes make use of the broad Teeth of the Fawns to hang about their Childrens Neck when they are breeding of their Teeth. The Tongue of a grown Moose, dried in the smoak after the Indian manner, is a dish for a Sagamor.
The Maccarib.56
The Maccarib, Caribo, or Pohano, a kind of Deer, as big as a Stag, round hooved, smooth hair’d and soft as silk; their Horns grow backwards a long their backs to their rumps, and turn again a handful beyond their Nose, having another Horn in the middle of their Forehead, about half a yard long, very straight, but wreathed like an Unicorns Horn, of a brown jettie colour, and very smooth: The Creature is no where to be found, but upon Cape Sable in the French Quarters, and there too very rarely, they being not numerous; some few of their Skins and their streight Horns are (but very sparingly) brought to the English.
The Fox.57
The Fox, which differeth not much from ours, but are somewhat less; a black Fox Skin heretofore was wont to be valued at fifty and sixty pound, but now you may have them for twenty shillings; indeed there is not any in New-England that are perfectly black, but silver hair’d, that is sprinkled with grey hairs.
The Jaccal.58
The Jaccal, is a Creature that hunts the Lions prey, a shrew’d sign that there are Lions upon the Continent; there are those that are yet living in the Countrey, that do constantly affirm, that about six or seven and thirty years since an Indian shot a young Lion,59 sleeping upon the body of an Oak blown up by the roots, with an Arrow, not far from Cape Anne, and sold the Skin to the English. But to say something of the Jaccal, they are ordinarily less than Foxes, of the colour of a gray Rabbet, and do not scent nothing near so strong as a Fox; some of the Indians will eat of them: Their Grease is good for all that Fox Grease is good for, but weaker; they are very numerous.
The Hare.60
The Hare in New-England is no bigger than our English Rabbets, of the same colour, but withall having yellow and black strokes down the ribs; in Winter they are milk white, and as the Spring approacheth they come to their colour; when the Snow lies upon the ground they are very bitter with feeding upon the bark of Spruce, and the like.61