There be two sorts of sea crabs. One our people call a king crab and they are taken in shoal waters from off the shore a dozen at a time hanging one upon another's tail; they are of a foot in length and half a foot in breadth, having legs and a long tail. The Indians seldom eat of this kind. There is a shellfish of the proportion of a cockle but far greater [conch]. It has a smooth shell, not ragged as our cockles; 'tis good meat though somewhat tough.
And, according to Alexander Whitaker in 1613:
The rivers abound with fish both small and great. The sea-fish come into our rivers in March and continue the end of September. Great schools of herrings come in first; shads of a great bigness and the rockfish follow them. Trout, bass, flounders, and other dainty fish come in before the others be gone. Then come multitudes of great sturgeons, whereof we catch many and should do more, but that we want good nets answerable to the breadth and depth of our rivers. Besides our channels are so foul in the bottom with great logs and trees that we often break our nets upon them. I cannot reckon nor give proper names to the divers kinds of fresh fish in our rivers. I have caught with mine angle, carp, pike, eel, perches of six several kinds, crayfish and the torope or little turtle, besides many small kinds.
When Whitaker penned the word "torope," he was giving the English-speaking world a new term, new because the animal it defined was unknown in Europe. Later spelled "terrapin," it meant the diamond-back, the esoteric little creature that spread the fame of the Chesapeake bay around the world and became an indispensable course on menus designed for the entertainment of royalty and the discriminating elect. The colonists probably ate it prepared Indian fashion, that is, roasted whole in live coals and opened at table where the savory meat was extracted by appreciative fingers. Over generations of terrapin-fanciers it evolved into one of the stars of the gastronomic firmament. It is a wholly American dish and it was born at Jamestown.
Contemporary Historian Ralph Hamor added his testimony in 1614:
For fish, the rivers are plentifully stored with sturgeon, porpoise, bass, rockfish, carp, shad, herring, eel, catfish, perch, flat-fish, trout, sheepshead, drummers, jewfish, crevises, crabs, oysters, and divers other kinds. Of all which myself has seen great quantity taken, especially the last summer at Smith's Island at one haul a frigate's lading of sturgeon, bass, and other great fish in Captain Argall's seine, and even at the very place which is not above fifteen miles from Point Comfort. If we had been furnished with salt to have saved it, we might have taken as much fish as would have served us that whole year.