itefo<5JitgIatrtrs Parities. 57 



be valued at fifty and fixty pound, but now you may have 

 them for twenty millings ; indeed there is not any in New- 

 England that are perfectly black, but filver hair'd, that is 

 iprinkled with grey hairs. 



The Jaccal} 



The Jaccal, is a Creature that hunts the Lions prey, a 

 fhrew'd iign that there are Lions upon the Continent; there 

 are thole that are yet living in the Countrey, that do con- 

 ftantly affirm, that about fix or feven and thirty years fince 

 an. Indian [22] fhot a young Lion 2 fleeping upon the body 



lyn's Voyages, p. S2 ; where is also an account of the way of hunting foxes in New 

 England. Wood has nothing special, but that some of the foxes " be black. 

 Their furrs is of much esteem" (I. c.) Williams (/. c.) has " mishquaskim, a red 

 fox ; pequa-vus, a gray fox. The Indians say they have black foxes, which they 

 have often seen, but never could take any of them. They say they are manit- 

 tooes." Beside the common red fox, or mishquaskim, we have in all these ac- 

 counts — and also in Morell's Nova Anglia, I. c, p. 129 — mention of a black 

 fox ; which may have been the true black or silver fox, or, in part at least, the 

 more common cross-fox (Aud. and Bachm., Viv. Quadr. N. A., p. 45) ; the pelt 

 of which is also in high esteem. For Williams's gray fox, see the next note. 

 Josselyn's climbing gray fox is perhaps the fisher [Mustela Canadensis, Schreb.), 

 notwithstanding the color. According to Audubon (7. c, pp. 51, 310, 315), this is 

 called the black fox in New England and the northern counties of New York. I 

 have heard it more often called black cat in New Hampshire. But the true gray 

 fox ( Vulfes Virginianus) " has, to a certain degree, the power of climbing trees." 

 Newberry Zoology, Expl. for Pacific Railroad, vi, part 4, p. 40. 

 ■ 1 " A creature much like a fox, but smaller." — Voyages, p. S3. Probably the 

 gray fox, called fequaivus by R. Williams ( Vulfes Virginianus, Schreb.) ; which 

 has not the rank smell of the red fox. — Aud. and Bachm., I. c., p. 168. 



2 " They told me of a young lyon (not long before) kill'd at Piscataway by an 

 Indian." — Voyages, p. 23. Higginson says that lions "have been seen at Cape 

 Anne." — Ne-M-Eng. Plantation, I. c, p. 119. "Some affirm," says Wood, "that 

 they have seen a lion at Cape Anne. . . . Besides, Plimouth men" (that is, men 

 of old Plymouth, it is likely) " have traded for lion-skins in former times. But 



H 



