John Josselyn.  An account of two voyages to New England (London, 1674). 

“The first complete description of the flora and fauna of the Middle Atlantic and New England States” (Justin Winsor, Narrative & Critical History, III (360)).  This work is also the best contemporary English description of New Netherland, Josselyn having included that colony under the name New England.  His inclusion of the list of “prices of all necessaries for furnishing a Planter and his Family at his first coming” shows that this was a practical work for prospective settlers, an early immigrants’ guide.  Josselyn’s first-hand accounts are based on two residences in America, the first in 1638-39 and the second from 1663-71.  He was a gentleman traveler trained as a physician and surgeon, and his brother Henry was a principal representative in Maine of the Mason and Gorges heirs, whose interests conflicted with those of the Massachusetts Bay Colony—which perhaps accounts for Josselyn’s occasionally hostile remarks upon the latter colony.  Josselyn’s work is notable for his many knowledgeable comments on the medicinal uses of various flora and fauna, including tobacco, the cranberry and the blueberry.  The wild turkey and other northeastern species of birds and other animals are fully described for the first time.  Josselyn’s prose and poetry is now included by scholars within the canon of early American literature.  He published only two works, the present book and New England’s Rarities Discovered (London: 1672).  According to the Dictionary of American Biography, “the Account of Two Voyages is the more ambitious work:  it is a rather strange compound of scientific lore, suggestions for settlers, bits of local history and much general observation.”