HABITS OF THE OTTAITANICHE 11 



they inhabit. The deeper pink color of the flesh of 

 the common Salmo solar that comes of a salt-water 

 diet, of which small red crustaceans and their eggs 

 form the larger part, is at all times wanting in the 

 ouananiche. It is certain, too, that the ouananiche of 

 Lake St. John is found in fresh water the whole year 

 round. It is angled for from the haiddle of May to 

 the middle of September, and throughout the whole of 

 the winter season is taken from under the ice in nets, 

 notably at Isle Eonde, in Lake St. John — a pretty 

 island from two to three miles distant from the mouth 

 of the Grande Decharge. In Lake Tschotagama, too, 

 more than fifty miles north of Lake St. John by way 

 of the Peribonca Eiver, ouananiche are killed by the 

 Indians at all seasons of the year. I have been un- 

 able to ascertain that these fish have ever been taken 

 in winter in rapid water, the bulk of the evidence that 

 I have collected tending to prove that after spawning 

 they retire to the deeper waters of the great inland 

 lakes. It often happens, for instance, that specimens 

 of the burbot or fresh-water cusk {Lota Americana) 

 are taken out of Lake St. John through the ice, meas- 

 uring three to four feet in length, and having within 

 them the undigested carcases of recently swallowed 

 ouananiche. 



Only until very recent times has much been known 

 of the spawning habits and migrations of the ouana- 

 niche. Oharles Hallock, in 1892, described the wana- 

 nishe (ouananiche) as spawning in the tributaries of 

 Lake St. John.* Mr. J. Gr. A. Creighton points out that 

 they evidently spawn also in the Grande Decharge.f 



* American Game Mshes, p. 35. t Idem, p. 87. 



