CHAP. VIL] MARINE SHELLS. QUICKSAND. 95 



The most conspicuous shell scattered over the smooth sands 

 was the large and ponderous Mactra solidissima, some specimens 

 of which were six inches and a half in their greatest length, and 

 much larger and heavier than any British bivalve. The broad 

 and deep muscular impression in the interior of each valve is 

 indicative of a great power of clasping ; and I was assured by a 

 good zoologist of Boston that this mollusk has been known to 

 close upon the coot, or velvet duck (Fuligula fusca), and the 

 blue-winged teal (Anas discorsj, when they have been feeding 

 on them, holding these feathered enemies so fast by the beak or 

 claw, that the tide has come up and drowned them. 



After we had been some time engaged in collecting shells, we 

 turned round and saw the horses of our vehicle sinking in a 

 quicksand, plunging violently, and evidently in the greatest terror. 

 For a few minutes our landlord, the driver, expected that they 

 and the carriage and himself would have been swallowed up ; 

 but he succeeded at last in quieting them, and after they had 

 rested for some time, though still trembling, they had strength 

 enough to turn round, and by many plunges to get back again to 

 a firm part of the beach. 



The wind was bitterly cold, and we learned that on the even 

 ing before the sea had been frozen over near the shore ; yet it 

 was two months later when, on the 22d of December, 1620, 

 now called Forefathers Day, the Pilgrims, consisting of 101 

 souls, landed here from the Mayflower. No wonder that half 

 of them perished from the severity of the first winter. They 

 who escaped seem, as if in compensation, to have been rewarded 

 with unusual longevity. We saw in the grave-yard the tombs 

 of not a few whose ages ranged from seventy-nine to ninety-nine 

 years. The names inscribed on their monuments are very char 

 acteristic of Puritan times, with a somewhat grotesque mixture 

 of other very familiar ones, as Jerusha, Sally, Adoniram, Consider, 

 Seth, Experience, Dorcas, Polly, Eunice, Eliphalet, Mercy, &c. 

 The New Englanders laugh at the people of the &quot; Old Colony&quot; 

 for remaining in a primitive state, and are hoping that the rail 

 road from Boston, now nearly complete, may soon teach them to 

 go a-head, But they who visit the town for the sake of old 



