THE ECONOMIC MOLLUSCA OF ACADIA. 
5 
Lescarbot’s “ Histoire de laNouvelle France,” was published 
first, appearing in 1609.* Champlain mentions the occurrence 
at the present Weymouth Harbor, St. Mary’s Bay, Nova 
Scotia, of “ many Shell-fish, such as Mussels, Cockles and Sea- 
snails,” which he observed in his exploration in 1604. At St. 
Croix, now Dochet, Island in the St. Croix River, he found 
Cockles, Mussels, and Sea-snails, and in another passage he 
incidentally tells us what the Cockle is. Speaking of the 
Indians, he says, “when they do not hunt, they live on a 
shell-fish called the cockle,” thus showing that he meant the 
•Clam. The Clam, as a food-mollusc, is unknown in Europe, its 
place being in part taken by the Cardium or true Cockle, for 
which Champlain naturally mistook it. By Sea-snails he 
probably means the large Whelks, Buccinum undatum and 
Lunatia heros. His only other reference to Mollusca, is in 
his description of Bras D’or Lake, Cape Breton, in which he 
says, — “there are many islands filled with a great deal of 
game, and Shell-fish of several kinds, among others of Oysters 
which are not of good flavor.” In the 1632 edition of his 
works, Champlain repeats these notes but does not add any 
new ones. They derive their interest from the fact that they 
are the very earliest references to our Mollusca known to us. 
*But Newfoundland can claim some earlier ones. In “ A letter written to M. 
Richard Hakluyt of the middle Temple, conteining a report of the true state and 
commodities of Newfoundland, by M. Anthonie Parkhurst Gentleman, 1578,” given 
by Hakluyt, Vol. HI., pp. 170-174, it is said; “ As touching the kindes of Fish . ... 
there are .... Oisters , and Muskles, in which I haue found pearles aboue 40 
in one Muskle, and generally all haue some, great or small. I heard of a Portugall 
that found one woorth 300 duckets: There are also other kinds of shel-fish, as 
limpets, cockles, wilkes, lobsters, and crabs: also a fish like a Smelt which commeth 
on shore [a marginal note says ‘ called by the Spaniards Anchouas, and by the Por- 
tugal Capelinas ’], and another that hath the like propertie, called a Squid.” And 
again, — “ I tolde you once I doe remember how in my trauaile into Africa and 
America, I found trees that bare Oisters, which was strange to you, till I tolde you 
that their boughes hung in the water, on which both Oisters and Muskles did sticke 
fast, as their propertie is, to stakes and timber.” No Oysters occur in Newfound- 
land, but as the writer refers more than once to Cape Breton, he probably includes 
what he saw there with what he saw in Newfoundland. Another writer in the 
same volume, p. 194, describing Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s voyage to Newfoundland 
in 1583, says that Oysters do occur there;—” Oysters hauing pearle but not orient 
jn colour: I tooke it by reason they were not gathered in season.” He must con- 
found some other mollusc with the Oyster. A little farther on, the same writer 
says:—” Lakes or pooles of fresh water, both on the tops of mountaines and in the 
vallies. In which are said to be muskles not vnlike to haue pearle.” 
