16 DESCRIPTION, CLASSIFICATION, AND 



name to a publication issued but a year before, and to 

 an author who first heard the word but five years 

 earlier, is the result of an imperfect acquaintance 

 with the Indian folk-lore and the French-Canadian 

 literature of the subject. The present author is com- 

 plimented, nevertheless, by the spelling followed by 

 Dr. Jordan, having vigorously contended for its adop- 

 tion for over a decade past, and not without a fair 

 measure of success, since it is now employed by the 

 majority of writers in Shooting and Fishing ', Forest 

 and Stream, the London Field, American Field, and 

 The Fishing Gazette, of London. Other forms of 

 the same word were employed to designate the fish 

 by English-speaking writers almost a century ago, 

 and by Hallock and Creighton nearly twenty years 

 ago. Nothing can be more preposterous than the 

 claims recently set up that the name is a new one 

 and represents a new member of the salmon family. 

 Neither of them was new to French-Canadians and 

 Canadian Indians two hundred years ago. To the 

 leading spirits in American angling and ichthyological 

 science both have been for some time familiar. Agas- 

 siz, in 1875, examined the ouananiche with Boardman 

 and Putnam, and declared it to be identical with the 

 so-called landlocked salmon of Maine. In 1879, or be- 

 fore, Dr. Hamlin declared the ouananiche the same as 

 the sea-salmon. 



How the Atlantic salmon, the Canadian ouananiche, 

 and the landlocked salmon of Maine appear to the 

 eye of the artist, when compared, is related in the 

 following extract from a letter addressed me by my 

 good friend Mr. Walter M. Brackett, of Boston : "In 



