214 WASTE-LAND WANDERINGS. 



Thomas Campanius, in his quaint little history of 

 New Sweden, credits the Delaware with two fishes I 

 have not yet been able to capture, to see, or hear of as 

 captured or seen by others. Campanius says : " Oppo- 

 site to Poaetquessingh which, I take it, is not far from 

 here there is a kind of fish with great long teeth, 

 which the Indians call Ma/nitto, which means spirit or 

 devil ; it plunges very deep into the water, and spouts 

 it up like a whale ; the like is not to be seen elsewhere 

 in the river." It is scarcely likely that such a remark- 

 able creature will ever be found in Crosswicks Creek, 

 and so, wondering what our author meant, let us turn 

 to his second description. He says : " There is here an 

 abundance of a certain kind of fish, which the Swedes 

 call tarm-fislc (gut-fish). It has no head, and is like a 

 small rope, one quarter of a yard in length, and four 

 fingers thick, and somewhat bowed in the middle. At 

 each of the four corners there runs out a small gut, or 

 bowel, three yards long, and thick as coarse twine : with 

 two of these guts they suck in their food, and with the 

 two others eject it from them. They can put out these 

 guts at pleasure, and draw them in again, so that they 

 are entirely concealed, by which means they can move 

 their body about as they like, which is truly wonderful 

 to look upon. They are enclosed in a house, or shell of 

 brown horn." 



Here our author refers, I take it, to the egg-cases of 

 skates, and as a description, it " is wonderful to look 

 upon." Campanius doubtless saw these somewhere in 

 the lower bay, and received at second-hand all that he 

 finds to say about them. 



