136 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Eev. Father Laçasse. O. .M. I., is from the pen of the Eev. Father Massé, 

 the eminent Jesuit missionary, who accompanied Cham] )hiin on his return 

 to Canada in I660. and died in l(j4(), after hxbouring earnestly amony-st 

 the aborigines and transhiting the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer. c\:c., 

 into the ^Montagnais dialect. 



• ()uananiche" is the orthograph}- employed by the jn-cse-nt F)'ench 

 and Indian guides of Lake St.. John. It is Ibund in the best literature 

 produced in the province of Quebec where the name originated, whether 

 Fnglish or French, as Avell as in the otticial reports of the Crown Lands 

 De])artmcnt of the Provincial Government, in the otticially i)romulgated 

 game laws of the province, and in the voluminous mass of literature per- 

 taining to the sporting resorts of this northern count ly. issued by tlu' 

 ■Qiiebec and Lake St. John Railway Company. Vandal linguists who 

 have attempted to anglicize the a])propriate and original orthography of 

 the Indian sound, have only succeeded in creating confusion, as we have 

 already seen, by erecting a Babel composed of a score or more of different 

 spellings of the same word. Uniformity in the matter may never be 

 looked for upon the basis of any one of the many anglicized forms of the 

 name. In French-Canadian literature, as well as in the Provincial 

 Government repoi'ts, 'ouananiche" it is and ■ ouananiche" it will remain. 

 The same is true of much of the best literary work done in recent years 

 by those English-speaking si>ortsmen who have devoted any considerable 

 attention to the fish and to the sport which it atfbrds tlie angler ; as for 

 instance of the article in the May, 1893, Blackicood. by Lt.-Col. .Vndrew 

 C. P. Haggard, 1). S. O.. brother of the well-known novelist, of that in 

 Outing for October. 1H93, by Kugene McCarthy of Syi-acuse. and of the 

 same author's Lcapiiuj Ouananiche. of papers in S/motiny and Fishing, in 

 the American Fiidd and in Forest and Stream, by K. J. Myers of New 

 York, and of frequent contributions by Dr. George Stewart. F.R.S.C., 

 F.R.G.S.. and others to recent ])eriodical literature. 



The form of spelling adopted in Webster's Dirtionarg and the ( 'ciitiirg, 

 lias nothing whatever to recommend it beyond the fact that in recent 

 3'ears it has been occasionally used by wi-itei's upon ichthytrlogical 

 subjects. Just as a number of others have been. Neither the English nor 

 the French ])ronunciation of " winninish " conveys anything like the 

 sound of the Indian name, as all will readily testify who have heard the 

 .melodious •' wha-nâ'-nish " glide like a note of nature's music from the 

 lips of a Monlagnais hunter. Of all the anglicized forms of the word 

 '■ wannanishe " comes nearest in }»ronunciation to the Indian sound, and 

 y^et I have never met with it but once. And even vwre it possible to 

 secure for its use uniformity, there is certainly no warrant for substituting 

 it for the original "ouananiche " and nothing to be gained by the change. 



The popular translation of the Montagnais " ouananiche " is '' little 

 salmon." It is true that ichr or i.she is a .Montagnais diminutive, but the 



