fkfrr^nglatttrs Eartttrs. 109 



SquaJJies, but more truly SquonterfquaJJies, a kind of 

 Mellon, or rather Gourd, for they oftentimes degenerate 

 into Gourds; fome of thefe are green, fome yellow, 

 fome longifh. like a Gourd, others round like an Apple, 

 all of them pleafant food boyled and buttered, and fea- 

 fon'd with Spice; but the yellow SquaJIi called an Apple 

 SquaJJi, becaufe like an Apple, and about the bignefs of 

 a Pome- water is the belt kind; 1 they are much eaten by 

 the India,7is and the EnglifJi, yet they breed the fmall 

 white Worms (which Phyfitians call Afcarides^) in the 

 long Gut that vex the Fundament with a perpetual itch- 

 ing, and a defire to 2:0 to ftool. 



Wafer-Mellon, it is a large Fruit, but nothing near fo 

 big as a Pompion, colour, fmoother, and of a fad Grafs 

 green rounder or more rightly Safi-gree?i ; "with fome 

 yellownefs admixt when ripe; the feeds are black, the 

 flefh or pulpe exceeding juicy. 2 



may possibly have been raised from seeds procured by French missionaries from 

 the Canadian savages : but P. vulgaris, L., our well-known bush-bean, is doubt- 

 less what Josselyn has mainly in view, as cultivated by the native Americans. 



1 " Askutasquask, — their vine-apples, — which the English, from them, call 

 squashes: about the bigness of apples of several colours." — R. Williams, Key, 

 dec, I. c, p. 222. "In summer, when their corn is spent, isquolersquashes is their 

 best bread; a fruit much like a pumpion." — Wood, Neiu-Eng. Prosfefl, part 2, 

 chap. vi. The late Dr. T. W. Harris made the ill-understood edible gourds a 

 special object of study, and devoted particular attention to the ascertaining of the 

 kinds cultivated by the American savages ; but his papers have not as yet -seen 

 the light. The warted squash (Cucurbila verrucosa, L.) and the orange-gourd 

 (C. aurantium, Willd.) — the fruit of which last is of the size and color of an 

 orange, and "more tender than the common pompion" (Loudon, Encycl. PI.) — 

 are perhaps, in part, intended by our author. 



- •• Pompions and water-mellons, too, they have good store," says our author 

 (Voyages, p. 130) ; and again, at p. 74 of the same, " The water-melon is proper 



