[262] There is obviously some corruption of the original manuscript here, but I have been unable to obtain any even plausible suggestion of what word may have been turned into “reles” through the compositor’s inability to decipher copy.
[263] There is not much to be said on the manufactures, utensils and trade of the New England aborigines. Gookin (I. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 151) has a comprehensive paragraph on the subject, and there is a passage in Josselyn (Two Voyages, p. 143). See also Williams’s Key, ch. xxv.
[264] Josselyn also speaks of “baskets, bags and mats woven with Sparke.” (Two Voyages, p. 143.) “Spart,” Mr. Trumbull writes, “was a northern English name for the dwarf-rush, and (as ‘spart’ in the glossaries) for osiers, and I guess, Morton’s and Josselyn’s sparke is another form of that name.” Gookin says (I. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 151): “Some of their baskets are made of rushes; some, of bents; others, of maize-husks; others, of a kind of silk grass; others, of a kind of wild hemp; and some, of barks of trees.”
[265] Wood says of the Indian women: “Their corn being ripe, they gather it, and drying it hard in the Sun, conveigh it to their barnes, which be great holes digged in the ground in forme of a brasse pot, seeled with rinds of trees, wherein they put their corne, covering it from the inquisitive search of their gurmundizing husbands, who would eate up both their allowed portion, and reserved seed, if they knew where to finde it. But our hogges having found a way to unhindge their barne doores, and robbe their garners, they are glad to implore their husbands helpe to roule the bodies of trees over their holes, to prevent these pioneers, whose theevery they as much hate as their flesh.” (Prospect, p. 81.) Mather also, in enumerating the points of resemblance between the Indians and the Israelites, (Magnalia, B. III. part iii.) says: “They have, too, a great unkindness for our swine; but I suppose that is because the hogs devour the clams, which are a dainty with them.”
[267] This Sachem has already been sufficiently referred to (Supra, p. 11.) All that is known concerning him can be found in Drake’s Book of the Indians, (ed. 1851), pp. 107-9.
[268] Morton’s neighbors at Wessaguscus were William Jeffrey, John Bursley and such others of the Robert Gorges expedition of 1623 as still remained there. (Supra, 4, 24, 30.) See also Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. 1878, p. 198.
[270] “Frumenty, n. [Also furmenty and fumety; from Lat. frumentum]. Food made of wheat boiled in milk, and seasoned with sugar, cinnamon, &c.” Webster.
[272] In reference to this passage, Mr. Francis Parkman writes: “I have searched my memory in vain for anything in the early French writers answering to Morton’s statement. I don’t think that Cartier, Champlain, Biard, Lescarbot or Le Jeune, the principal writers before 1635, make the extraordinary assertions in question. In fact, as there were no Spaniards in Canada, and likely to be none on French vessels going there, Indians of those parts would hardly have the opportunity of distinguishing between them by smell or otherwise. Indeed, they did not know the existence of such a nation.”
[274] “Kytan was an appellation of the greatest manito. The word signifies ‘greatest’ or ‘pre-eminent.’ See my note (p. 207) in Lechford’s Plaine Dealing (p. 120), where is mention of ‘Kitan, their good god.’ Roger Williams in a letter to Thomas Thorowgood, 1635, names ‘their god Kuttand to the south-west’ (Jewes in America, 1650, p. 6) but in his Key, he writes the name Cautantowit (To the Reader, p. 24.) i. e., Keihte-anito—‘greatest manito.’
“I have not met with the name Sanaconquam elsewhere: at least I do not remember seeing it except in Morton. The derivation is apparently from a word meaning to press upon, to op-press, to crush, or the like.” (Manuscript Letter of J. H. Trumbull, June 25, 1882.)
See, also, authorities referred to supra, p. 140, note, and also Ellis’s Red Man and White Man, pp. 134-9. Morell has a passage on the Indian’s methods of worship in his poem. (I. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 136.)
[275] Roger Williams says: “They will relate how they have it from their Fathers, that Kantántowwit made one man and woman of a stone, which disliking, he broke them in pieces, and made another man and woman of a tree, which were the Fountaines of all mankind.” (Key, ch. xxi.)
“They believe that the soules of men and women goe to the Sou-west, their great and good men and women to Cantántowwit his House, where they have hopes (as the Turks have) of carnal Joyes: Murtherers, theeves and Lyers, their souls (say they) wander restlesse abroad.” (Ib.)
Wood, enlarging on this, says: “Yet do they hold the immortality of the never-dying soul, that it shall passe to the South-west Elysium, concerning which their Indian faith jumps much with the Turkish Alchoran, holding it to be a kind of Paradise, wherein they shall everlastingly abide, solacing themselves in odoriferous Gardens, fruitfull corn-fields, green meadows, bathing their hides in the coole streams of pleasant Rivers, and shelter themselves from heat and cold in the sumptuous Pallaces framed by the skill of Natures curious contrivement. Concluding that neither care nor pain shall molest them but that Natures bounty wil administer all things with a voluntary contribution from the overflowing storehouse of their Elysian Hospital, at the portall whereof they say lies a great Dog, whose churlish snarlings deny a Pax intrantibus to unworthy intruders.” (Prospect, p. 79.)
Parkman says: “The primitive Indian believed in the immortality of the soul, but he did not always believe in a state of future reward and punishment.” (Jesuits in North America, p. lxxx.) Referring to a case in which one of the Jesuits quoted an Indian as saying “there was no future life,” Parkman adds: “It would be difficult to find another instance of the kind.”
The romantic view of the Indian on this point was taken by Arnold, in his History of Rhode Island (vol. i. p. 78), and the realistic view by Palfrey, in his New England (vol. i. p. 49); and, though writing at the same time, the two seem to be controverting each other. See Ellis’s Red Man and White Man, p. 115.
[277] Roger Williams, also, in a passage just quoted (supra, 168, note), speaks of the future punishment supposed, among the New England Indians, to be allotted to thieves and liars. Josselyn, on the other hand, describes them as “very fingurative or theevish” (Two Voyages, p. 125); and Gookin says: “They are naturally much addicted to lying and speaking untruth: and unto stealing, especially from the English” (I. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 149). Winslow describes the severe punishments inflicted for theft (Young’s Chron. of Pilg., p. 364). Dodge, in his Wild Indians (pp. 63-5), explains this discrepancy in the authorities. He says: “All these authors are both right and wrong. In their own bands, Indians are perfectly honest.... It [theft] is the sole unpardonable crime among Indians.” He then describes, like Winslow, the severity of the punishments inflicted for thefts; “but,” he adds, “this wonderfully exceptional honesty extends no further than to the members of his immediate band. To all outside of it, the Indian is not only one of the most arrant thieves in the world, but this quality or faculty is held in the highest estimation.”
[278] The reference is to ch. iii. of the Third Booke (infra, *106-8). This passage would seem to indicate that the third book of the New Canaan was written first, and that the two other books were prepared subsequently, probably in imitation of Wood’s Prospect. (See supra, 78.)
[279] “Yea, I saw with mine owne eyes that at my late comming forth of the Countrey, the chiefe and most aged peaceable Father of the countrey, Caunoŭnicus, having buried his sonne, he burned his owne Palace, and all his goods in it, (amongst them to a great value) in a sollemne remembrance of his sonne, and in a kind of humble Expiation to the Gods, who, (as they believe) had taken his sonne from him.” (Williams’s Key, ch. xxxii.) In the same passage Williams says: “Upon the Grave is spread the Mat that the party died on, the Dish he ate in, and, sometimes, a faire Coat of skin hung upon the next tree to the Grave, which none will touch, but suffer it there to rot with the dead.” See also Young’s Chron. of Pilg., pp. 142, 143, 154, 363; Strachey’s Historie, p. 90.
“In times of general Mortality they omit the Ceremonies of burying, exposing their dead Carkases to the Beasts of prey. But at other times they dig a Pit and set the diseased therein upon his breech upright, and, throwing in the earth, cover it with the sods and bind them down with sticks, driving in two stakes at each end; their mournings are somewhat like the howlings of the Irish, seldom at the grave but in the Wigwam where the party dyed, blaming the Devil for his hard-heartedness, and concluding with rude prayers to him to afflict them no further.” (Josselyn, Two Voyages, p. 132.) There is a highly characteristic passage to the same effect in Wood’s Prospect, p. 79.
[281] The reference is to Wood’s New England’s Prospect, p. 13; where, also, the Indian custom of firing the country in November is described.
[282] Gookin says: “This beastly sin of drunkenness could not be charged upon the Indians before the English and other Christian nations, as Dutch, French, and Spaniards, came to dwell in America: which nations, especially the English in New-England, have cause to be greatly humbled before God, that they have been, and are, instrumental to cause these Indians to commit this great evil and beastly sin of drunkenness.” (I. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 151.)
In regard to the peculiarities of Indian drunkenness, see Dodge’s Wild Indians, pp. 333-5. What is there said of the Indians of “the plains” is probably true of all the northern American Indians. “This passion for intoxication amounts almost to an insanity.... To drink liquor as a beverage, for the gratification of taste, or for the sake of pleasurable conviviality, is something of which the Indian can form no conception. His idea of pleasure in the use of strong drink is to get drunk, and the quicker and more complete that effect, the better he likes it.”
[283] “They live in a country where we now have all the conveniences of human life: but as for them, their housing is nothing but a few mats tyed about poles fastened in the earth, where a good fire is their bed-clothes in the coldest seasons; their clothing is but a skin of a beast, covering their hind-parts, their fore-parts having but a little apron, where nature calls for secrecy; their diet has not a greater dainty than their Nokehick, that is a spoonful of their parched meal, with a spoonful of water, which will strengthen them to travel a day to-gether; except we should mention the flesh of deers, bears, mose, rackoons, and the like, which they have when they can catch them; as also a little fish, which, if they would preserve, it was by drying, not by salting; for they had not a grain of salt in the world, I think, till we bestowed it on them.” Magnalia, B. III. part iii. In his Letters and Notes on the North American Indians (Letter No. 17) Catlin comments on the failure of the Indians to make any use of salt, even in localities where it abounds. See supra, 161.
[284] The relations supposed to exist between the Indians and the devil have been referred to in a previous note, supra, 150. It is, however, a somewhat curious fact that the aboriginal hierarchy, suggested in the text, had a few years before found its exact political counterpart in the talk of the English people. “‘Who governs the land?’ it was asked. ‘Why, the King.’ ‘And who governs the King?’ ‘Why, the Duke of Buckingham.’ ‘And who governs the Duke?’ ‘Why, the Devil.’” (Ewald’s Stories from the State Papers, vol. ii. p. 117.)
[285] “Sed quoniam, (ut præclare scriptum est a Platone) non nobis solum nati sumus, ortusque nostri partem patria, vindicat, partem amici.” De Officiis, Lib. I. § 7. The words “partem parentes” are not in the original, but have been inserted by modern scholars as rendering the quotation from Plato more correct.
[286] In annotating this chapter I have been indebted to Professors Asa Gray and C. S. Sargent of Harvard University for assistance, they having sent me several of the more technical notes. This and the five following chapters of the New Canaan have a certain interest as being among the earliest memoranda on the trees, animals, birds, fish and geology of Massachusetts. The only earlier publication of at all a similar character is Wood’s New England’s Prospect, which appeared in 1634, and contained the result of observations made during the four years 1629 to 1633. Morton’s acquaintance with the country was earlier and longer than Wood’s, but the New Canaan was not published until three years after the Prospect, which it followed closely in its description of the country and its products. Josselyn’s first voyage was made in 1638, and his stay in New England covered a period of fifteen months, July, 1638, to October, 1639. His second visit was in 1663, and lasted until 1671. The New England’s Rarities was published in 1672, and the Two Voyages in 1674. Josselyn’s alone of these works can make any pretence to a scientific character or nomenclature, but the four taken together constitute the whole body of early New England natural history and geology. Only occasional reference to this class of subjects is found in other writers.
[287] The White Oake includes, no doubt, Quercus alba and bicolor, and the Redd Oake, Quercus rubra, tinctoria and coccinea.
[288] Edward Williams, in his Virginia (III. Force’s Tracts, No. 11. p. 14), written in 1650, says: “Nor are Pipestaves and Clapboard a despicable commodity, of which one man may with ease make fifteen thousand yearely, which in the countrey itselfe are sold for 4 l. in the Canaries for twenty pound the thousand, and by this means the labour of one man will yeeld him 60 l. per annum, at the lowest Market.”
[289] Probably Fraxinus Americana, although two other species of Ash are common in Massachusetts, the Red and the Black Ash (F. pubescens and sambucifolia).
[290] It is interesting to note that, at this early day, two forms of our one species of Beech were distinguished by the color of the wood, a distinction which has often been adopted by Botanists and is still considered by mechanics and woodsmen.
[291] This refers, no doubt, to our different species of Hickory, although the Butternut (Juglans cinerea) is common in Massachusetts.
[292] Both the White and the Pitch Pine (Pinus strobus, and rigida) are probably referred to.
[293] “For I have seene of these stately high growne trees, ten miles together close by the River side, from whence by shipping they might be conveyed to any desired Port.” (Wood’s New England’s Prospect, p. 15.)
[294] The Red Cedar (Juniperus virginia).
[295] This is clearly a contemptuous reference to Wood, who in his Prospect (p. 15) had said, “The Cedar tree is a tree of no great growth, not bearing above a foote and a halfe square at the most, neither is it very high. I suppose they be much inferiour to the Cedars of Lebenon, so much commended in holy writ.”
[297] The White Cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides); or perhaps Arbor-Vitæ (Thuja occindentalis), which is the “more bewtifull tree.”
[298] A misprint for Gerard, whose Herball, or Generall Historie of Plants, was published in 1597, and Johnson’s edition of it in 1633.
[299] This probably includes both the Black Spruce (Picea nigra) and the Hemlock (Truga canadensis).
[300] “Spruce is a goodly Tree, of which they make Masts for Ships, and Sail Yards: It is generally conceived by those that have skill in Building of Ships, that here is absolutely the best Trees in the World, many of them being three Fathom about, and of great length.” (Josselyn, Rarities, p. 63.) “At Pascataway there is now a Spruce-tree brought down to the water-side by our Mass-men of an incredible bigness, and so long that no Skipper durst ever yet adventure to ship it, but there it lyes and Rots.” (Two Voyages, p. 67.)
[302] Probably the Sugar, Red and White Maples are intended: Acer saccharinum, rubrum and dasycarpum. It is singular that no reference to the manufacture of maple sugar by the Indians occurs.
[303] (Elder) Sambucus Canadensis.
[304] Wood (Prospect, p. 15) says, “Two sorts, Red and White.” None of our native Grape vines bear White grapes.
[306] Perhaps our little Beach plum (P. maritima) is intended. The wild American Plum-tree is probably not a native of Massachusetts, although it was early cultivated by the aborigines and settlers.
[307] (Sassafras officinale.)
[308] The Ginseng (Aralia quinquefolia), or the Wild Sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis).
[309] In Chapter IX. of this Book (infra, *94) Morton again refers to the growth of hemp in New England, as evidence of the fertility of the soil. He declares “that it shewteth up to be tenne foote high and tenne foote and a halfe.” Thomas Wiggin, also, in writing of New England in November, 1632, says: “As good hempe and fflax as in any parte of the world, growes there naturally.” (III. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. viii. p. 322.) Hemp, however, is not native to New England or America. That spoken of must have been grown from seed brought over by the colonists. Morton may have seen it growing in garden soil at Plymouth and Wessagusset, but that any field of it ever reached a height of ten or ten and a half feet in eastern Massachusetts is very questionable.
[310] Professor Gray of Harvard University has furnished me the following note on this chapter:—
“Unlike Josselyn, the author evidently was not an herbalist, and wrote at random. His pot-marjoram, thyme and balm, though not to be specifically identified, and none of them of the same species as in England, must be represented by our American pennyroyal (Hedeoma pulegioides), a native mint (Mentha borealis), wild basil (Pycnanthemum), and a species of Monarda, sometimes called balm, all sweet herbs of the New England coast. Alexander is hardly to be guessed. Angelica as a genus occurs here, but not the officinal species. Wild sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis) was probably in view. Purslane is interesting in this connection, adding as it does to the probability that this plant was in the country before the settlement. There are no Anniseeds in New England, and it is impossible to guess what the author meant. It was probably a random statement founded on nothing in particular. The Honeysuckles were doubtless the two species of Azalea to which the name is still applied.” Wood also says (Prospect, pp. 11, 12), “There is likewise growing all manner of Hearbes for meate and medicine, and not only in planted Gardens, but in the woods, without either the art or helpe of man, as sweete Marjoram, Purselane, Sorrell, Peneriall, Yarrow, Myrtle, Saxifarilla, Bayes, &c.” See also Mr. Tuckerman’s introductory matter and notes, in his edition of New England’s Rarities [1865], and Professor Gray’s chapter (vol. i. ch. ii.) on the Flora of Boston and vicinity, and the changes it has undergone, in the Memorial History of Boston.
[311] For the greater part of the notes to this chapter, and for all those of a technical character, I am indebted to Mr. William Brewster, of Cambridge. To his notes I have added a few references to, and extracts from, other early works more or less contemporaneous with the New Canaan.
[312] Probably the Whistling Swan (Cygnus Americanus), now a rare visitor to New England. Wood, also, in his poetical enumeration of birds and fowls (Prospect, p. 23), speaks of
Further on (p. 26) he says, “There be likewise many Swannes which frequent the fresh ponds and rivers, seldome consorting themselves with Duckes and Geese; these be very good meate, the price of one is six shillings.” In his enumeration of birds of New England, Josselyn (Two Voyages, p. 100) mentions “Hookers or wild-Swans.” This bird is not included in Peabody’s Report on the Ornithol. of Massachusetts (1839).
[313] The Brant (Bernicla brenta), common at the present day.
[314] The Snow Goose (Anser hyperboreus), now rare in New England, although common throughout the West.
[315] The Canada Goose (Bernicla Canadensis).
[316] The Black Duck (Anas obscura), still abundant. The identity of the other two is doubtful: the Pide Duck may have been the Pied or Labrador Duck (Camptolæmus Labradorius), a species formerly common but now nearly if not wholly extinct; the Gray Duck is probably the Pintail (Dafila acuta).
[317] The Green-winged Teal (Querquedula Carolinensis) and the Blue-winged Teal (Querquedula discors), both noted for the delicacy of their flesh.
[318] Probably the American Widgeon, or Baldpate (Mareca Americana). The name Widgeon is sometimes applied to other species, however.
[319] Probably some species of web-footed bird, but exactly what is not clear. Mr. Merriam, in his Review of the Birds of Connecticut (pp. 104-5), identifies Morton’s Simpe as the American Woodcock (Philohela minor), but in this he is doubtless in error. In the first place, it is not likely that a keen sportsman like Morton would have shot woodcock merely out of curiosity, and “more did not regard them;” in the second place, Josselyn, in enumerating the different sorts of ducks, speaks of “Widgeons, Simps, Teal, Blew wing’d and green wing’d.” (Two Voyages, p. 101.) But for the reference in the next paragraph in the text, and the disparaging manner in which the bird in question is alluded to, it would be inferred that Simpes was a natural misprint for Snipes. That, however, is clearly not the case.
[320] The Sanderling (Calidris arenaria), a common Sandpiper, peculiar in lacking the usual hind toe. The context indicates that other shore birds were included under this name. “There are little Birds that frequent the Sea-shore in flocks called Sanderlins, they are about the bigness of a Sparrow, and in the fall of the leaf will be all fat; when I was first in the Countrie the English cut them into small pieces to put into their Puddings instead of suet. I have known twelve score and above kill’d at two shots.” (Josselyn’s Two Voyages, p. 102.) To precisely the same effect Wood says (Prospect, p. 27), “I myselfe have killed twelve score at two shootes.”
[321] Neither the Whooping Crane (Grus Americana) nor the Sandhill Crane (Grus pratensis) is now found in New England. The latter is probably the species referred to here. Our large Heron (Ardea herodias) is often called Crane by country people, but it does not eat corn, and “in a dishe” would hardly be considered “a goodly bird.”
[322] The Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallipavo Americana) is mentioned by all the early writers as an abundant bird; but it disappeared almost as rapidly as the Indians, before the encroachment of the white settlers. Peabody, writing in 1839 (Report on the Fishes, Reptiles, and Birds of Massachusetts, p. 352), says: “It is still found occasionally in our western mountains, and also on the Holyoke range, where some are taken every year.” Its total extinction probably occurred only a few years later.
[323] Probably an exaggeration, although Audubon mentions one that weighed thirty-six pounds; the ordinary weight of the full-grown male is from fifteen to twenty pounds, a gobbler weighing twenty-five pounds being an unusually large bird. Yet Morton’s statement is fully borne out by other contemporary authorities. Wood says, “The Turky is a very large bird, of a blacke colour, yet white in flesh; much bigger then our English Turky. He hath the use of his long legs so ready, that he can runne as fast as a Dogge, and flye as well as a Goose: of these sometimes there will be forty, three-score and an hundred of a flocke, sometimes more and sometimes lesse; their feeding is Acorns, Hawes, and Berries, some of them get a haunt to frequent our English corne: In Winter when the Snow covers the ground, they resort to the Sea-shore to looke for Shrimps, and such small fishes at low tides. Such as love Turkie hunting must follow it in Winter after a new falne Snow, when he may follow them by their tracts; some have killed ten or a dozen in halfe a day; if they can be found towards an evening, and watched where they peirch, if one came about ten or eleaven of the clocke, he may shoote as often as he will, they will sit, unlesse they be slenderly wounded. These Turkies remain all the yeare long. The price of a good Turkie cocke is foure shillings: and he is well worth it, for he may be in weight forty pound; a Hen two shillings.” (New England’s Prospect, p. 24.) So also Josselyn: “I have heard several credible persons affirm, they have seen Turkie Cocks that have weighed forty, yea sixty pounds; but out of my personal experimental knowledge I can assure you, that I have eaten my share of a Turkie Cock, that when he was pull’d and garbidg’d, weighed thirty pound.” He adds, however, that even then [1670] “the English and the Indians having now destroyed the breed, so that ’tis very rare to meet with a wild Turkie in the Woods.” (New England’s Rarities, p. 9.) See also Two Voyages, p. 99, where the same writer says: “If you would preserve the young Chickens alive, you must give them no water, for if they come to have their fill of water, they will drop away strangely, and you will never be able to rear any of them.” John Clayton, in his Letter to the Royal Society [1688], says of Virginia: “There be wild Turkies extream large; they talk of Turkies that have been kill’d, that have weigh’d betwixt 50 and 60 Pound weight; the largest that ever I saw, weigh’d something better than 38 Pound.” (III. Force’s Tracts, No. 12, p. 30.) Williams, in his Virginia [1650], speaks of “infinites of wilde Turkeyes, which have been knowne to weigh fifty pound weight, ordinarily forty.” (III. Force’s Tracts, No. 11, p. 12.) See also Strachey’s Historie, p. 125; Young’s Chron. of Mass., p. 253.
[324] In regard to this expression Mr. Trumbull writes: “Metawna is mittànnug (R. Williams), muttannunk (Eliot),—Englished by ‘a thousand;’ but to the Indians less definite, ‘a great many,’ more than he could count. Neent is possibly a misprint for necut (nequt, Eliot), ‘one,’—but, more likely, stands for ‘I have,’ or its equivalent, ‘there is to me.’ Roger Williams (p. 164) puts the numeral first, nneesnneánna, ‘I have killed two,’—shwinneánna, [‘I have killed] three,’” &c.
[325] The Pheasant of Morton and other early writers has been supposed by ornithologists to be the Prairie Hen or Pinnated Grouse (Cupidonia cupido), a species which, however, has dark not “white flesh,”—“formerly ... so common on the ancient busky site of the city of Boston, that laboring people or servants stipulated with their employers, not to have the Heath-Hen brought to table oftener then a few times in the week.” (Nuttall’s Ornithology, vol. i. p. 800.) There is good evidence that this bird once ranged over a large part of Southern New England; it is still found on Martha’s Vineyard, where it is carefully protected and is not uncommon. Elsewhere it does not now occur much to the eastward of Illinois.
[326] The Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbella).
[327] The American Partridge, Quail, or Bob White (Ortyx Virginiana).
[328] Of doubtful application. Our Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris) is the nearest North American ally of the English Skylark, but it is so differently colored that Morton probably had in mind some other species, perhaps the Titlark (Anthus ludovicianus).
[329] Three species of Crows are found in New England: the Raven (Corvus carnivorus), now confined to the northern parts of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont; the Common Crow (Corvus Americanus); and the Fish Crow (Corvus ossifragus), which occasionally wanders to Massachusetts from its true home in the Middle and Southern States. The latter may have been the Rook. “Kight” is a dubious appellation, possibly referring to the Swallow-tailed Kite (Nauclerus furcatus), now a rare straggler from the South, but formerly, as some ornithologists believe, of regular occurrence in New England.
[330] The descriptions given for these Hawks are too vague to be of much use in determining species. A clew is often furnished by familiar terms of falconry, which, we may assume, would be naturally applied to American representatives of Old World forms. Morton, however, uses these terms very loosely, or, perhaps, with a regard to fine distinctions of meaning not now understood. In such a case nothing can be done beyond pointing out their accepted significance and probable application.
[331] The male of Falco lanarius, a Falcon found in the southern and south-eastern parts of Europe, as well as in Western Asia and the adjoining portions of Africa. An American variety, the Prairie Falcon (Falco lanarius polyagrus), has a wide range in the West, but is not known to have occurred to the eastward of Illinois. The bird referred to by Morton is doubtless the Duck Hawk (Falco peregrinus), an allied species not uncommon in New England.