EXTRACTS. 281 



Van der Donck (Adriaen): A Descrijytmi of the New Netherlands, etc.; 

 {original printed at Amsterdam, 1656) ; Collections of the New- York Historical 

 Society, Second Series, Vol. I, New- York, 1841. — "To hunting and fishing the 

 Indians are all extravagantly inclined, and they have their particular seasons 

 for these engagements. In the spring and part of the summer, they practise fish- 

 ing. When the wild herbage begins to grow up in the woods, the first hunting 

 season begins, and then many of their young men leave the fisheries for the pur- 

 pose of hunting ; but the old and thoughtful men remain at the fisheries until 

 the second and principal hunting season, which they also attend, but with snares 

 only. Their fishing is carried on in the inland waters, and by those who dwell 

 near the sea, or the sea-islands. The latter have particular advantages. Their 

 fishing is done with seines, set-nets, small fikes, wears, and laying hooks. They 

 do not know how to salt fish, or how to cure fish properly. They sometimes dry 

 fish to i^reserve the same, but those are half tainted, which they pound to meal 

 to be used in chowder in winter." (Page 209).* 



Kalm {Peter): Travels into North America, etc.; translated hj John Beinhold 

 Forster ; London, 1772. — [New York, October, 1748]. " The Indians, who inhab- 

 ited the coast before the arrival of the Europeans, have made oysters and other 

 shell fish their chief food ; and at present, whenever they come to a salt water, 

 where oysters are to be got, they are very active in catching them, and sell them 

 in great quantities to other Indians, who live higher up the country : for this 

 reason you see immense numbei's of oy.ster and muscle shells piled up near such 

 places, where you are certain that the Indians formerly built their huts. This 

 circumstance ought to make us cautious in maintaining, that in all places on the 

 sea shore, or higher up in the country, where such heaps of shells are to be met, 

 the latter have lain there ever since the time that those places were overflowed 

 by the sea. Among the numerous shells which are found on the sea- 

 shore, there are some, which by the English here are called Clams, and which 

 bear some resemblance to the human ear. They have a considerable thickness, 

 and are chiefly white, excepting the pointed end, which both without and within 

 has a blue colour, between purple and violet. They are met with in vast num- 

 bers on the sea shore of New York, Long Island, and other places. The shells 

 contain a large animal, which is eaten both by the Indians and Europeans settled 

 here. A considerable commerce is carried on in this article, with such Indians 

 as live further up the country. When these people inhabited the coast, they 

 were able to catch their own clams, which at that time made a great part of their 



* The same volume contains translated extracts from John de Laet's "Nieuwe Wereldt " (Leyden, 1625). 

 In Book III, Chapter X, this author, in giving Henry Hudson's account of the great river named after him, 

 states that the navigator had seen the Indians "catching in the river all kinds of fresh-water fish with seines, 

 and young salmon and sturgeon " (p. 300). This was in 1609. De Laet unquestionably had Hudson's journal 

 before him. It is now lost, or, perhaps, buried in some Dutch archive. 



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