the General Court, as the Legislature of that State is called, in behalf 7 of their friendly relations to the Menhaden! It set forth that the ancestors of the petitioners, when they landed in this country, fixed their abode upon the banks of the Neponset River, because of the abundance of fish therein; that the supply had never failed but proved an ever-present help "in the war of 1812, the Tariff struggle, the crises of 1837 and 1857," but that "when the troubles came on caused by the bombardment of Fort Sumter, the fish in the water of the Neponset quietly departed, and from that time we have been deprived of our hereditary luxuries." The loyal and fish-loving population, therefore, petition the General Court to cause the erring Menhaden to return to be eaten as of old! In the State of New York the same fish appear under the name of Mossy Back or Mossbunkers, a term much affected by W. Irving, who writes: "Here an old Dutch burgher related that he saw the duyvel in the shape of a huge Mossbonker seize the sturdy author by the leg and draw him beneath the waves. Hence, as to Mossbonkers, they are held in such abhorrence, that no true Dutchman will admit them to his table, who loves good fish and hates—the devil?" (Knickerbocker History of New York, p. 221.) The Mummachog is hardly known beyond the waters around Long Island; the small carp-like fish is more generally called the Barred Killy, (Fundulus.) The Porgy (Pagrus argyrops) from the imperfect pronunciation of r by Americans also frequently called Paugy and Poggy, a fish of the gilt-head kind and much esteemed for its flavor, has a curious history connected with its Indian name. In the Narragansett dialects the latter appears as Mishescuppaug, the plural of Mishescuppe, which meant "large-scaled." Of this word the first part mishe seems to have been entirely lost, the next syllable scup has been retained in Rhode Island, while the last, a mere termination with the p of the word itself, paug has been lengthened into paugie or altered into porgie, and thus furnished the name by which the fish is known in New York. It is stated, however, upon J. R. Bartlett's authority, that "the entire Indian name is still common in many parts of New England." A fish much esteemed in Northern waters, and especially commended by Mr. Daniel Webster, as "an excellent fish, in its way inferior to none, unless it be the genuine sheepshead, for which I am told it was mistaken by Roger Williams," (Letter to Mr. Seaton, Feb. 14, 1859), is the Tautog, (Labrus americanus.) The Indian word is the plural of taut and was really translated in the "Key to Indian Languages” as sheepheads, the name of a near cousin also caught in the same waters, though considered superior when caught in the South. In New York it is called Black Fish from its color. The Tomcod also owes its odd-sounding name—as if it were not a Tom Cat but a Tom Cod-to a corruption of the original Indian name, Tahcaud, an old Mohegan word, meaning "plenty-fish." This presumption is strengthened by the fact that Cuvier still calls it Tacaud, a word which naturally led by its sound to the conversion into a thoroughly English sounding name. The little fish (Morrhua pruinosa) appears in vast numbers with the first frost and is hence quite as well known as Frost Fish; thus we hear it said: "Here we met with large schools of Frost Fish, the Tomcod of our books, with hosts of hungry bluefish in fierce pursuit." (A Whaling Cruise, p. 119.) Nor must we omit mentioning the poor little Weak Fish, contemptuously so-called by the fishermen of Long Island Sound because of the feeble resistance it makes when caught by a hook. Its Indian name Squeteague is not only in use among the people of the neighborhood, but has found its way from the Narragansett dialect, in which it originated, to scientific works, where the fish appears as Labrus Squeteague. Perhaps the most ludicrous corruption of an Indian name into a good English word is that of the Narragansett term aloof into alewife. The former is quoted by Winthrop in his essay "On the Culture of Maize" (Philos. Trans. No. 142, p. 1065), and by Baddam (Memoirs, II., p. 131), as stated in Webster's Dictionary. But as the Indian dialects of New England contain neither 7 norf, the original word was more probably ainoop. Whatever may have been the true origin, there was enough resemblance in the term to tempt the English for with them we are inclined to think the change arose to convert it into their familiar alewife, and thus the little fish (Clupea serrata), resembling a herring, and used! mainly for manure, appears at home and abroad in the ridiculous form of alewives. While the common shellfish found in the sand of tidal rivers and known as clam, derives its English name very significantly from its resemblance to a clamp, and was so called for many cen turies down to Captain John Smith, who writes: "You shall scarce find any bay or shallow shore or cove of sands where you may not take many clampses or lobsters, or both at your pleasure" (Virginia, I., p. 124), it is frequently still called by its Indian name poquauhock. This word, however, has shared the fate of other long Narragansett terms, and been made to do duty in parts: pooquaw being now the name of the Round Clam in Nantucket, while quahaug represents the same shellfish in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. (S. S. Haldeman.) The laws of Rhode Island use the term quahog in imposing a heavy fine on persons who take them between May and September from certain beds in Providence River, where, in common with several other places of like character, the luscious shellfish are regularly planted after the manner of oysters. The clam of Boston is the Mya arenaria of the clam-banks, and when salted for the fisheries it takes the name of clam-bait. Hen Clam is the name given in New England to the Mactra gigantea. It has already been mentioned that the Quahaug (Venus mercenaria) served in olden times to furnish the Suquahock, as Roger Williams calls it, of which the Indians made their currency: "After they have eaten the meat there (in those which are good) they breake out of the shell about halfe an inch of a blacke part of it, of which they make their Suckauhock, or black money, which is to them pretious." (B.) The Soft Clam is also still known by its Indian name Mananosay, suggestive of its long flexible snout from which it spirts water, so that on the sea coast: "even the toothsome Manonosays squirted water up through the sand what time the tides were out." (Putnam's Monthly, May, 1870.) Even the favorite method of preparing the clam has been taught us by the Indians, and is to this day known as a Clam Bake, from the fact that they are baked in an impromptu stove of stones and weeds. A hole in the ground of the proper size for the quantity to be prepared is lined with round stones and thoroughly heated by a continuous fire, then the hard clams are thrown in and covered with sea-weeds to prevent the escape of steam and flavor. The result is an unexpectedly savory dish, which is tempting enough to attract often large parties, and J. R. Bartlett mentions a political Clam Bake in Rhode Island in 1840, at which nearly ten thousand persons were present. It requires probably a greater familiarity with the life of the clam to appreciate the force of the New England proverb: "As happy as a clam at high water,” though at that time it certainly seems to enjoy the generous fluid that covers and feeds it at the same time. The vulgar use of the word clamshell is unfortunately more intelligible, and hence the expression, quite common wherever slang is heard, "Shut your clamshell, for: Keep your own counsel," is familiar even to English ears, and the poet Lowell uses it with great force in the lines: "You don't feel much like speakin' When, ef you let your clamshells gape, a quart of tar will leak in." In addition to these Indian terms derived from the former owners of our Continent, and more or less intimately connected with our social or domestic life, we have in our English a limited number of terms that owe their origin to Indians of Central and South America, or of the West India islands. Some of these are sufficiently familiar and important to deserve a place among American peculiarities of our idiom, although the great majority are probably as common in England as with ourselves. Thus the Barbecue, the roasting whole of an animal by splitting it to the backbone and placing it on a rude gridiron of stakes, is a term-and a process-obtained from the Indians of Guiana, who used the word Berbekot for the wooden grills on which they broiled or smoked dried meats and fish. R. B. Beverley shows that the word was in use in Virginia before 1700, for he says: "By laying the meat upon four sticks, raised upon forks at some distance above the live coals," . . . which " they and we also from them call barbecueing." The word was adopted by the English in Guiana as early at least as 1665, and thus Pope was led to exclaim through Oldfield: "Lend me, gods, a whole hog barbecued.” There is no necessity, therefore, of resorting to the violent, if tempting, derivation from barbe-à-queue, words which in themselves bear no association with beardless hogs and oxen, and certainly would not be apt to be familiar to Virginia Indians. The convenience of thus preparing ample food for a number of persons in the simplest way, and the happy result of the process of roasting, have led to the preservation of the ancient custom, and down to the time of the late Civil War barbecues were frequent in the South and generally very happy occasions for neighbors and political friends to assemble in council. The merry scene in the shelter of a wood, the fragrant steam, the savory meat, and the lively interchange of wit and jest, all served to make the simple entertainment a bond of friendship and neighborly kindness among the assembled people, and spoke well for the simple habits and cordial feelings of what C. Lanman in his description of such a meeting calls "the yeomanry of Virginia." (Adventures, II., p. 259.) The West India term Cacique, borrowed by the Spaniards from the Cazic of Hayti, has become so familiar to American ears, that it is often most absurdly applied, now to chiefs of Indian tribes and now to mayors of New Mexican towns, and any somewhat pompous and self-sufficient man is apt to be nicknamed the Cacique of his town. Calico is of course as familiar to our ears as to English, but the East India word, derived from the city of Calicut, does not denote the same material in America; while in England white cotton goods are still called calicoes, the name is here confined to prints, i. e. colored cotton cloth, coarser than muslin. The latter material, so called from Mosul in Syria, is, on the other hand, in New England never applied, as in England, to thick cotton cloths, which are there called shirting or sheeting. The difference in various States is so great in this respect, that a story is told of a gentleman in Philadelphia, who ordered muslin shirts in Boston, and although reminded of the unsuitableness of that material for the climate in which he lived, insisted upon his order, as he had always worn muslin, meaning cotton-shirting. When his shirts arrived, they were made of Swiss mull! The term muslin is, at the North, only used for thin, clear fabrics, and paper-muslin is known as sarcenet cambric. The Cassareep of the West Indies, the name of the juice of the cassawa-root (Jathropha manihot), boiled down to destroy its poisonous properties, and much employed as a condiment, is as such well known, and has made the name more familiar to American ears than the Chicha, a fermented liquor made in the West Indies of Indian corn, and not unknown in the new States that were once under Spanish authority. The Mexican word Coyotl, the Aztec name of the prairie-wolt |