Squa/lies, 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 Squajli called an Apple 
SquaJJi, becaufe like an Apple, and about the bignefs of 
a Pome-water is the beft kind ; 1 they are much eaten by 
the Indians and the EngliJJi, yet they breed the lmall 
white Worms (which Phyfitians call Afcaridcs^) in the 
long Gut that vex the Fundament with a perpetual itch- 
ing, and a dehre to go to ftool. 
Water-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 Sap-green ; 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 " Askutasquash, — their vine-apples, — which the English, from them, call 
squashes: about the bigness of apples of several colours." — R. Williams, Key, 
drc, I. c, p. 222. "In summer, when their corn is spent, isquotersquashcs is their 
best bread; a fruit much like a pumpion." — Wood, Neiv-Eng. ProsfictH, part 2, 
chap. vi. The late Dr. T. W. Harris made the ill-understood edible gourds a 
special obje<5t 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. 
2 " 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 
