Read it through once

Just how hungry the Pilgrims were during these trying times is less clear. Provisions had been moved ashore from the ship and stored in the common house. That these were not ample for the group is suggested by numerous references in their journal to the other foods they acquired—on one occasion they killed an eagle, ate it, and said that it was remarkably like mutton. The appearance of a single herring on the shore in January raised hopes of more, but they “got but one cod; [they] wanted small hooks,” and this was eaten by the master of the ship “to his supper.” In at least one case they found themselves in competition with both Indians and wild animals: “He found also a good deer killed; the savages had cut off the horns, and a wolf was eating of him; how he came there we could not conceive.” But it would seem that, while food was never plentiful, actual starvation was held at bay. Yet if death was a constant companion, hunger was almost certainly a regular visitor to them.