230 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



ability, from a zoological point of view, that it has not occurred there, 

 I think these men were mistaken, and gave the statement from some 

 rumor in which a wish fathered the thought. Called by the French 

 Htdstre. 



Oziers. — See Saule. 



Palombe. — See Tourte. 



Palonne. — French name of the European Spoonbill, which does not occur in 

 Canada. But Denys applies the name to an ,\cadian Water-bird, which 

 appears to be the Shoveller Duck, though with much confusion of the 

 two very different birds. According to G. Trumbull's Names and Por- 

 traits of Birds the Shoveller Duck is called Spoonbill in North Carolina 

 and Georgia. 



Palourde, or Paloude. — French (Breton) name for a shell fish, transferred to 

 the Round Clam (Hard Clam, Venus mercenaria) in Acadia. Men- 

 tioned by Lescarbot as Paloude, (wrongly translated as Oj'sters by 

 Grant, Translation, I, 113), though Lescarbot's reference to its size 

 points towards the Scallop. No oysters occur in Annapolis Basin or 

 vicinity where Lescarbot's observations were made, while the Round 

 Clam is known to occur near by, in Saint Mary's Bay, (Whiteaves, 

 Marine Invertebrata of Eastern Canada), and no doubt occurs also in 

 Annapolis Basin. But its identity is placed beyond question by the 

 fact that Paloude is the Acadian name for the Round Clam to this day. 



Passereau. — French name for the Sparrow, without distinction of species, 

 extended to those of America. Used first by Cartier in 1535 as Passes 

 solitaires, and by Lescarbot as lascif Passcrcav, the lusty sparrow. 



Passe solitaire. — See Passereau. 



Peason. — See Pois. 



Pear Trees. — See Poires. 



Peccan, or Pekan. — Name for a Canadian mammial, relative of the "Weasels, 

 called also the Fisher. It is used first, so far as I can find, bj' Dien^- 

 ville in 1710, as Peccan. The word is Indian, apparently, though not 

 Micmac; A. F. Chamberlain cites Rasle as giving an animal in Abenaki 

 as pékané. Mr. Thompson Seton gives Pekan as the Canadian French 

 name for the Fisher, .and cites C. G. D. Roberts as saying that the 

 Micmacs call it Pe'kicahm. The elaborate Dictionaries of Rand, how- 

 ever, give no such name but a very different one for this animal, and Mr. 

 Roberts must be mistaken. The Maliseets, however, according to Mr. 

 Adney, also cited by Mr. Thompson Seton, call it P'giimpk or Prkonk, 

 which M. Chamberlain gives as pnk-vmk'. 



Penguin. — Name used by the early English voyagers for the Great Auk. 

 First used in the account of the Hore voyage of 1536, applied to the 

 Island (Funk Island) where those birds especially abounded, and there- 

 after by various voyagers to Newfoundland. Its origin is uncertain, but 

 is English or Welsh, and it was later transferred to the bird now so- 

 called in the southern seas. It was to some extent adopted by the 

 French, for Denys, in 1672, described the bird under the name of 

 Pennegoin, but its common French name was Apportât and Tangueu. 



