Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1908 by Forest and Strkam Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, $2. J 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER B, 1903. 
f VOL. LXI.— No. 10. 
( No. 846 Broadway, Nbw York 
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WORDS. 
Over the word "carcarjou" there has been much dis- 
cussion, some declaring that it is a French word, others 
that it has Indian origin. Those who contend for this 
last, say that it has the same derivation as "quick-hatch," 
coming from a Cree word kikzvakes — ^by which name the 
wolverine used to be called in the Canadian northwest. 
The most common explanation of the word "caribou" 
is that it is from the French carrc-banf, meaning square 
ox, but Dr. A. S. Gatschet, perhaps our most eminent 
authority on Eastern Indian tongues, recently showed 
that it is a Mic Mac word xalihu, meaning scratcher, or 
pawer, from the habit of the caribou of pawing away the 
snow to reach its food. The change of 1 to r is too 
common to need explanation. 
Such words as "chebog," one of the names for the 
menhaden, "chequet," a name for the weakfish, "chogset" 
for the cunner, "cisco" and "ciscoet" are all of Indian 
derivation, but of limited range. 
Of far wider general interest is the name "hickory," 
already alluded to, applied to several species of the 
genus Carya, and which seems to come from some of the 
Virginia Algonquian dialects. Capt. John Smith and 
others give various words, such as pawcohiccora, po- 
hickery, and pehickery as the names either of a prepara- 
tion of food of which walnuts form an ingredient or as 
names of trees. 
All older readers are familiar with the discussion as to 
the origin of the word "muscalonge." The proper term 
was at length decided to be maskinonge, from the Ojibwa 
word maskinonje, mask, meaning ugly, and kmonjiT, 
meaning fish. The word, as well known, has been used 
in a variety of forms. 
"Moccasin," or, as it used to be called in the Canadian 
northwest, "skin shoe," belongs to eastern Algonquin 
dialects of Virginia and New England, and also to the 
Ojibwa, who used the term makisin. 
The largest of the deer, the moose, takes its name 
from the Indians, the Virginia Algonquin calling it ynoos, 
the Delawares mos, and the Ojibwa mons. The name 
is said to mean eater. The Cheyenne term for elk is some- 
what similar to this word, or at least it has the same 
root, being mo me. "Wapiti" the round homed elk 
of America, probably derives its name from the Cree 
zvapitaw, "dirty white, grayish" from the color of the 
animal. 
The muskrat, whose common name in Canada is mus- 
quash, receives this appellation from the Abnaki musk- 
ivessu, and the Ojibwa miskwasi, meaning "it is red," 
referring to the animal's color. In the same way our 
opossum seems to have been named from its color, the 
reference being to its whiteness or grayness. 
The pemmican of the Northwest, a food made of buf- 
falo meat and grease, which none of us are ever likely 
eat again, is derived from the Cree pimikkan, said to 
an a bag full of grease and pounded meat, pimiy, 
uieaning grease. 
Capt. John Smith, to whom we owe so much of our 
knowledge of the early southeast, calls the raccoon 
arouglicun, and other writers give other forms, all of 
them, however, carrying very nearly the sound of our 
own word. 
"Terrapin" is another common word from one of the 
Algonquin tongues, some of the forms being tarope, little 
turtle, turpa, tortoise, and toarche, tortooise. We have 
now "taurup" or "torope" on the Long Island shore, as 
the name of a form of snapping turtle. 
"Toboggan," "togue," tomahawk," "totem," and 
"wampum" are all familiar, as is also wananish, which 
has been spelled in as many ways as the different forms 
of muscalonge. This word is said to be a diminutive 
of wanans, salmon, and so to mean little salmon. 
A word now rapidly passing out of use is wavy, ap- 
plied to certain geese in the Hudson's Bay and adjacent 
territory. This probably comes from the Cree word 
ivezve, which is obviously from the bird's cry, just as is 
another Indian name for wild goose, wawa. 
been Dertien, the thirteen." 
Whisky- Jack, the name of the gray jay, or Canada 
jay, was originally "Whisky John," and this comes 
directly from the Cree term for the same bird, wisketjan. 
A good illustration of the way foreign words are 
brought into the language and given new meanings be- 
cause of their sound and through ignorance of the original 
significances, is found in the names of fishes current on 
Manhattan Island in the early days of New York. In 
that extremely scarce work, Miller's "New Yorke," 
printed in 1695, it is related of the natural resources of 
the province: 
"Fish there are in great store both in the Sea & rivers 
many of them of ye Same kinds as we have in England 
& many strange & such as are not to be seen there some 
even with out name except such as was given them from 
Ihe Order they were taken in as first second third &c." 
An explanation of the naming by numbers is found in 
Benson's -Memoir (1825), wherein it is said of the fish in 
the Hudson : 
"A few only will be noticed — some denoted by numbers 
as their names — the Twaalf, the twelve, the Streaked 
Bass, and the Elf — the Shad, the name of the Shad in 
Dutch is Elft, in German Aloft, and in French Alosc, 
all perhaps from the same root; but being pronounced 
here Elf, the number eleven, the number itself possibly 
came to be considered as its name, and so led to denote 
others in the same manner — the Drum is said to have 
A volume might be written on this subject, but enough 
has been said to show that the words contributed by the 
Indian tongues to the English are neither few nor un- 
important. While the tracing out of many of these words 
has been well done for the East, there still remains much 
work of this character to be done in the West, and espe- 
cially on the northwest coast. 
THE EARLIEST SHOOTING. 
In many States the shooting season opens this week. 
In the West the hopeful sportsman with wagon and 
water keg and dogs, drives over the stubbles, looking for 
the great grouse that used to be so plenty, and in many 
localities is now so scarce. The prairie resounds with 
the cracking of the nitro shells, the dogs run themselves 
down in the hot sun, and some good bags have been 
made. Now the birds are strong and well grown, and 
wilder, too, than they were two weeks ago, better able 
to take care of themselves. If they present a more diffi- 
cult mark to the shooter, they are a prize better worth 
having when won. 
Back in the East the real opening of the season is 
still weeks or months distant. To be sure, there are 
birds in season — the casual sandpeep or the unobstrusive 
and deprecatory rail. The sandpeep offers slight reward 
for the gunner, but, because he is so toothsome, the rail 
is worth pursuing. He is not at all difficult to capture, 
for usually he gets up slowly and seems to fly away re- 
luctantly. Often the effort of getting up seems too 
much for him, and he drops down after a few yards' 
flight, only to be stirred up again by the push pole of the 
shover. 
■Rail shooting is a sport for ladies and children; yet 
because it comes to us at a season when for a long time 
we have not been able to use the gun in the field, we arc 
most of us likely to wish to have at least one day in the 
grass with our long-legged friends. 
Not so very many years ago in most States, the rail 
were absolutely without protection. They might be shot 
at any time and in any num.bers. Men began to shove 
for them just as soon as the wild oats or corn grass com- 
menced to ripen, and thus speedily killed off all the local 
birds, leaving the meadows bare, until the advancing fall 
and the cooler nights brought down another flight from 
the north. 
In those days heavy bags were made. A friend re- 
cently reminded us of a time when he brought in eighty- 
four birds, killed after having used eighty-seven car- 
tridges — all he had, and the tide had scarcely turned. 
The bags of a well-known New Haven sportsman who, 
we believe, killed 212 birds on a tide on the North Haven 
meadows, are still remembered there. Happily, nothing 
of this kind is now possible in Connecticut, the bag being 
limited to fifty rail. 
In view of the easterly storm which prevailed last week, 
the tides all along the coast should be high and rail 
shooting should be good all over the meadows. 
THE DYNAMITER. 
That was a sound homily on the public rights in fish- 
ing which Judge Smith, of Helena, Mont, delivered the 
other day when he imposed a fine of $400 upon a promi- 
nent citizen for dynamitiijg fish. The iniquity of the 
dynamiter lies in part in the useless destruction he 
causes beyond the fish he secures for his own use, Tbe 
fisherman who uses hook and line can kill only such fish 
as he brings to hand; the netter may, as a ruie, if h« 
wishes to do so, set free the small fry and the species 
he cannot make use of; but the dynamiter wreaks uni- 
versal destruction to marine life, killing not only the few 
or many fish he can use for himself, but others which are 
simply wasted. It is thus impossible for a dynamiter 
to take from public waters a mess of fish for himself 
without at the same time robbing others of what belongs 
to them ; and for this reason dynamiting is very properly 
and almost universally under the ban of the law. This fine 
of $400 for dynamiting is, we believe, a record breaker; 
but if prominent citizens will persist in setting an evil 
example to the rest of us who are less conspicuous in the 
community, it is only fitting that the penalties they pay 
should be such as will teach the rest of us a lesson. One 
thing as certain as the safe keeping of the America's 
Cup on this side of the water for another year, is that 
in the vicinity of Helena, Mont., the dynamiter will not 
brag of any big fish he may capture in that way. 
Fish dynamiting is a practice which often brings its 
own speedy and terrible punishment. In Florida one 
day last week another "prominent citizen" went fishing 
with dynamite in an Alachua county lake. He lighted the 
cartridge fuse, which went out. Then he relighted the 
short fuse, and before he could throw the cartridge from 
him, it exploded and blew off both his hands. Such 
warnings are by no means infrequent. By reason of the 
peril to limb and life involved in it, if for no other 
reason, the use of dynamite for fishing should be forr 
bidden by laws enforced as stringently as the Montana 
law is when Judge Smith is on the bench. 
The woods of - Franklin county, Mass., are reported 
becoming restocked with deer. The Gazette of North- 
ampton reports that the game park established on 
the farm of Joshua Hall in Ashfield, in Franklin 
county, has proved a great success; the twenty-six deer 
and six elk . originally ■ confined in it have largely in- 
creased, and, says the Gazette, there are within four miles 
of the park more deer in a wild state than there are 
within it. The Massachusetts and Connecticut deer are 
demonstrating the recuperative qualities of the wild 
game supply under favorable conditions of protection. 
There is in both these States a vast territory of wild and 
partially cultivated land, in every way adapted to the 
support of a large number of deer; and there is no reason 
why the future deer stock should not be abundant and 
permanent. 
Freedom from pursuit and from harrying is a condi- 
tion which makes for increase. The moose and elfc put 
out in the Adirondacks are fully cognizant of their 
security; they have put themselves on terms of con- 
fiding intimacy with the summer cottagers, and come to 
the kitchen door of a morning for their treat with all the 
sang froid of a Yellowstone Park grizzly making his 
free-lunch route of the hotel swill heaps. 
K 
At this writing, Tuesday, Sept. i, the sport of inter- 
national yacht racing as practiced off the port of New 
York, has degenerated into a dreary, dismal, and irk- 
some waiting for the final race. The foregone conclu- 
sion of the defeat of Shamrock III. has been held by all 
who witnessed the sailing of the first race, or who have 
read our reports of the races. It is not too much to 
say that the winding up of the 1903 series will be a relief 
to all concerned. With this result of Sir Thomas Lip- 
ton's third attempt to lift the Cup, and the discourage- 
ment into which British yachtsmen have fallen, there is 
extremely slight probability of any new challenger in 
the immediate future. The conviction is generally held, 
both here and abroad, that the America's Cup caimot 
under existing yachting conditions be wrested from th$ 
possession of the United States, 
