Ix PROCEEDINGS. 
large vicious fly is called a stowt, but according to Wright and Halliwell 
this is the Westmoreland name for the gadfly. Then the snipe is called 
a snite, which is the old English form, ‘‘ The witless woodeock and his 
neighbor snite.” (Drayton’s ‘Owl.”) Earthworms are termed yesses, 
which Wright gives as Dorset-shire and Halliwell as Somerset. 
II. I have next to notice words still in general use, but employed by 
Newfoundlanders in a peculiar sense, this being sometimes the original 
or primary signification. 
Perhaps in this respect the stranger is most frequently struck by the 
use of the words plant and planter. Neither has any reference to culti 
vating the soil. A planter is a man who undertakes fishing on his own 
account, a sort of middleman between the merchants and the fishermen. 
He owns or charters a vessel, receive all the supplies from the merchants, 
hires the men, deals with them, superintends the fishing, and on his 
return deals wfth the merchants for the fruits of the adventure, and 
settles with the men for their respective shares. 
To many the most singular instance of this kind will be the use of 
the term lachelor women. Yet, as in Newfoundland, it originally 
denoted an unmarried person of either sex. 
He would keep you 
A bachelor still 
And keep you not alone without a husband 
But in a sickness.—Ben Jonson. 
Scarcely less strange may appear the application of the term barren 
both to males and females. In the distribution of poor relief a com- 
plaint may be heard, ‘‘ He is a barren man, and I have three children.” 
So the word seems to have been understood by the translators of King 
James’s version of the Bible. Deut. vii. 14: ‘‘ There shall not be male 
or female barren among you.” 
Boughiten, applied to an article, is used to signify that it has not been 
manufactured at home. The same use of the word was common in New 
England. 
Bread with a Newfoundlander means hard biscuit, and soft baked 
bread is called doaf. The origin of this is easily understood. For a 
length of time the coast was frequented by fishermen, who made no 
permanent settlement on shore, and whose only bread was hard biscuit. 
In a similar way fish came to mean codfish. 
