THE ECONOMIC MOLLUSCA OF ACADIA. 5 



Lescarbot's " Histoire de la Nouvelle France," was published 

 first, appearing in 1609.* Champlain mentions the occurrence 

 •at the present Weymouth Harbor, St. Mary's Bay, Nova 

 Scotia, of " many Shell-fish, such as Mussels, Cockles and Sea- 

 snails," which he observed in his exploration in 1604. At St. 

 Croix, now Dochet, Island in the St. Croix River, he found 

 Cockles, Mussels, and Sea-snails, and in another passage he 

 incidentally tells us what the Cockle is. Speaking of the 

 Indians, he says, "when they do not hunt, they live on a 

 shell-fish called the cockle," thus showing that he meant the 

 Clam. The Clam, as a food-mollusc, is unknown in Europe, its 

 place being in part taken by the Cardium or true Cockle, for 

 which Champlain naturally mistook it. By Sea-snails he 

 probably means the l^rge Whelks, Biiccinum undatum and 

 Lunatia lieros. His only other reference to Mollusca, is in 

 his description of Bras D'or Lake, Cape Breton, in which he 

 says, — "there are many islands filled with a great deal of 

 game, and Shell-fish of several kinds, among others of Oysters 

 which are not of good flavor." In the 1633 edition of his 

 works, Champlain repeats these notes but does not add any 

 new ones. They derive their interest from the fact that they 

 are the very earliest references to our Mollusca known to us. 



*But Newfoundland can claim some earlier ones. In " A letter written to M. 

 Richard Hakluyt of the middle Temple, containing a report of the true state and 

 commodities of Newfoundland, by M. Anthonie Parkhurst Gentleman, 1578," given 

 by Hakluyt, Vol. UI., pp. 170-174, it is said; " As touching the kindes of Fish .... 

 there are .... Oisters , and Huskies, in which I haue found pearles aboue 40 

 in one Muskle, and generally all haue some, great or small. I heard of a Portugall 

 that found one woorth 300 duckets: There are also other kinds of shel-fish, as 

 limpets, cockles, wilkes, lobsters, and crabs: also a flsh like a Smelt which commeth 

 on shore [a marginal note says ' called by the Spaniards Anchouas, and by the Por- 

 tugals Capelinas '], and another that hath the like propertie, called a Squid." And 

 again, — "I tolde you once I doe remember how in my trauaile into Africa and 

 America, I found trees that bare Oisters, which was strange to you, till I tolde you 

 that their boughes hung in the water, on which both Oisters and Muskles did sticke 

 fast, as their propertie is, to stakes and timber." No Oysters c-ccur in Newfound- 

 land, but as the writer refers more than once to Cape Breton, he probably includes 

 what he saw there with what he saw in Newfoundland. Another writer in the 

 same volume, p. 194, describing Sir Humphrey Gilbert's voyage to Newfoundland 

 in 1583, says that Oysters do occur there;—" Oysters hauing pearle but not orient 

 in colour: I tooke it by reason they were not gathered in season." He must con- 

 found some other mollusc with the Oyster. A little farther on, the same writer 

 says: — " Lakes or pooles of fresh water, both on the tops of mountaines and in the 

 rallies. In which are said to be muskles not vnlike to haue pearle." 



