0rto=<£nglantis Eartttrs, 59 



[23] Thirdly, Of Fifties. 1 



PLiny and If adore write there are not above 144 Kinds 

 of Fifb.es, but to my knowledge there are nearer 

 300: I fuppofe America was not known to Pliny and 

 I/adore. 



which see also p. 53 of this ; otter ; marten, ' ' as ours are in England, but blacker ; " 

 sable, " much of the size of a mattrise, perfect black, but ... I never saw but two 

 of them in eight years' space;" the squirrel, "three sorts, — the mouse-squirril, 

 the gray squirril, and the flying-squirril (called by the Indian assapanick)." Our 

 author's mouse-squirrel, which he describes, is the ground or striped squirrel : 

 probably the " anequus, a little coloured squirrel" of R. Williams, /. c. ; and the 

 anikoosess (rendered Suisse) of Rasles, /. c. The mattrise of our author is, accord- 

 ing to him, " a creature whose head and fore-parts is shaped somewhat like a 

 Iron's; not altogether so big as a house-cat. They are innumerable up in the 

 countrey, and are esteemed good furr." — Voyages, p. S7. The sable is compared 

 with the mattrise, at least in size; and the name is perhaps comparable with 

 mattegoo€ssoo of Rasles, /. c. ; but this is rendered liivre. Wood adds to this list 

 of our quadrupeds, mistakenly, the ferre.t; and R. Williams, the " ockquutc/iauii- 

 nug, — amid beast of a reddish hair, about the bigness of a pig, and rooting like 

 a pig; " which seems to answer, in name as well as habits, to our woodchuck, or 

 ground-hog. 



1 The author's attempt here at a general catalogue of the fishes, mollusks, &c, 

 of the North-Atlantic Ocean, affords but a poor make-shift for such a list as we 

 might fairly have expected from him of the species known to the early fishermen 

 in the waters and seas of New England; and the account in his Voyages (pp. 

 104-15) is again an improvement on the present, and is confined to the inhabi- 

 tants of our waters. The present editor has little to offer in elucidation of the 

 list; which indeed, in good part, appears sufficiently intelligible. Compare 

 Wood, New-Eng. Prospedt, chap. x. 



