Tlie Land of the Winanishe 



The winanishe or ouinaniche, accord- 

 ing to French spelling --is a fish, and a 

 fish of great interest to both naturalist and 

 angler. The etymology of the name, which 

 is said to be Indian for " saumon de 1'eau 

 douce/' : is untraceable in either Monta- 

 gnais or Cree : the most probable derivation 

 is that which assigns it to an Indian attempt 

 to pronounce "saumon," with the addi- 

 tion of the well-known diminutive "ishe." 

 This exactly describes the fish, -- the little 

 salmon, - - for to the naturalist it is simply 

 an Atlantic salmon of small size, which is 

 not anadromous; that is, does not periodi- 

 cally run up from the sea. The same fish is 

 found in parts of Maine, Nova Scotia, and 

 New Brunswick, and known as the land- 

 locked salmon, and is probably identical 

 with the land-locked salmon of Sweden. 

 Salmo salar, variety Sebago, is its scientific 

 name, the latter part of the appellation com- 

 ing from a lake in Maine where it attains its 

 greatest size. The identity of the winan- 

 ishe with the Salmo salar is quite settled 

 by its anatomy. Size and color, always 



* The meaning here assigned to the word winanishe is proba- 

 bly erroneous. In a later article Mr. Creighton thinks it "prob- 

 ably derived from the Cree root ' wan,' to lose or mistake, applied 

 either to the fish having lost itself, or being taken for a salmon." 

 In Ojibway, a closely allied tongue, ivani in composition always 

 means mistake or error; and nin ivaninishka would mean, I go 

 around, or by a circuitous route. Whether there is any real ety- 

 mological connection, however, is hard to say. L. M. Y. 



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