172 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July 29, 1911. 
Local Names of Waterfowl and 
Other Birds 
By W. L. McATEE, Biological Survey, Washington, D. C. 
The entire stretch is navigable by steamer 
as are the tributary rivers. Launches make 
trips daily westward on Rainy River to 
Warroad at the foot of the Lake of the Woods. 
Thence one may go by steamer to Kenora, near 
Winnipeg. Fort Frances is but seven hours from 
Port Arthur by railway, from which point con¬ 
nections are made with various steamship lines. 
Bass fishing furnishes sport for thousands of 
men each year when the season is open. In 
this State is it especially true where it is so 
commonly found in every lake of any size. The 
number of amateur anglers who each year go 
to the lakes with the intention of bringing home 
a load of these beautiful fish can be reckoned 
by the hundred. 
Amateurs seldom take advice before they set 
out. They select inferior rods and tackle. They 
jump at the chance of purchasing a rod that is 
cheap, and a close inspection of these rods 
would amuse the angler who has been at the 
pastime for many years and who knows rods. 
The bamboo rods of the cheap, dry-good store 
variety are the most laughable things on the 
market, and it is a wonder that sensible-minded 
people can be imposed upon to purchase them. 
One must know how to lure bass to win suc¬ 
cess, and it takes years to learn the right way. 
Bass are not found in the same place every day, 
and while once you may have success on a fair 
day, another you will have better luck on a 
stormy one. 
Get a good outfit. Do not go by your own 
judgment, but hunt up a fisher of your ac¬ 
quaintance who understands rods: tell him iust 
how it is and he will willingly help you out. 
The most important thing in the fishing out¬ 
fit is the reel; your success is measured by the 
reliability and working order of this feature. 
How many have not experienced the disgusting 
example of a poor reel that refuses to work 
smoothly, that paves the way to the eternal 
backlash and subsequent disorders. There are 
many reels on the market and there are a host 
of inferior ones. 
Upon the reel reposes the success of your 
trip, therefore get a good one. A small reel 
is to be advocated rather than the large one; 
an eighty-yard reel is about the best. A braided 
silk line is best and it should be thin and 50 
yards of it will take up very little room on the 
spool. Artificial minnows are often productive 
of the best of results, but to a great extent it 
depends where you are fishing. In the northern 
part of the State the wooden minnow is sure 
to bring them in, and then again where waters 
have been fished much they are not so good. 
The white-bellied minnows with a green back, 
of a small size, and having the burr at the end, 
is most used by fishermen. The ones with three 
sets of hooks in treble, two on the sides and 
one at the end, may be used where the water is 
not filled with weeds, or they may be removed 
as I have often done, leaving only the one at 
the end. 1 here is a wide range of opinion as 
to which is the best and only the fisherman 
himself can settle this, as there is no particular 
choice, one seeming to be as good as the other 
There are many types of the trolling spoon and 
fly-spoon, and they have been used with great 
success according to fishermen I have met. 
There are a number of varieties in every shape, 
and the fisher must suit himself as to which are 
the best. 
I N dealing with local names of game birds, 
Gurdon Trumbull’s excellent compilation of 
the “Names and Portraits of Birds” 1 is 
truly an indispensable handbook. The writer has 
longed to see the work revised, especially since 
acquaintance (gained in field work under au¬ 
thorization of the Biological Survey) with gun¬ 
ners’ parlance in the Mississippi Valley and 
Southern States has brought to light many names 
not included in that work. A list of these is, 
therefore, offered as a contribution toward a 
more complete glossary of game bird names. A 
list of little known aliases for non-game birds 
also is presented. 
The writer has many additional localities for 
names given by Trumbull, but publication of 
these is probably desirable only in a complete 
formal catalogue of names. The citation of 
localities in connection with the various cog¬ 
nomens is fully as important as stated by Trum¬ 
bull (pp. V.-VI.). It is essential to one trying 
to identify a collection of strange nicknames 
from a given locality, for there is no doubt that 
these often apparently outlandish titles, that one 
might well consider freaks of an individual 
imagination, have their specific ranges, so to 
speak, and in all but minor details run true to 
form. For instance the names heard by the 
writer about Currituck Sound, N. C., agree as 
far as they go with those quoted from More- 
head, N. C., by Trumbull. The same relation 
holds for names used in Arkansas and along the 
Illinois River. Another interesting example is 
the name Willcrisson cited for the flicker from 
the Dismal Swamp Region, Va., by Frank L. 
Burns. 2 I found this used on Church’s Island, 
N. C. Such instances renew one’s faith in the 
accuracy of observation and the reliability of 
the spoken records of the unlettered people. 
Many local names describe so tersely and spirit¬ 
edly salient features of habits or appearance of 
birds that they are far more appropriate than 
the “book” names for the species. The latter 
names, as a class, are well designated, for many 
of them have no existence outside of books. 
The principal additions now made to Trum¬ 
bull’s lists are the French names, their transla¬ 
tions, or the French and English combinations 
in use among the gunners of Southern Louisiana. 
Since so few of these appear in Trumbull’s book 
(they are repeated here), or any other easily 
accessible work on birds, the writer has drawn 
upon three published lists 3 of Louisiana birds in 
order to make the collection of bird names of 
Creole origin as complete as possible. As indi¬ 
cated above, a pure French term may be used, 
or one may hear its literal or garbled transla¬ 
tion. Again a French genus name or its deriva¬ 
tive in the dialect may be combined with Eng¬ 
lish adjectival terms designating the species. 
In the “Names and Portraits of Birds Which 
‘New York. 1888, pp. VIII. and 221. 
“Wilson Bulletin, N. S. VII. No. 2. April, 1910, p. 10. 
3 Beyer, Geo. E. Proc. La. Soc. Nat. (1897-1899), 1900, 
pp. 75-119; Mcllhenny, E. A., Auk, XIV., 1897, pp. 285- 
289; Beyer, Geo. E., Allison A., and Kopman, H. H., 
Auk, 24, 1907, pp. 314-321; 25, 1908, pp. 173-180. 
Interest Gunners,” as the full title reads, not all 
species of waterfowl and shore birds are in¬ 
cluded. Species additional to Trumbull’s list are 
starred below. Only the families of birds he 
dealt with are treated here, but all of the species 
for which little known local names were heard 
are listed, and in the order of the 1910 Check 
List of the North American Birds by the Amer¬ 
ican Ornithologists’ Union. 
The writer takes pleasure in expressing his in¬ 
debtedness to Ned Hollister and Lawrence 
Horton for lists of local names in use at Dela- 
van Lake, Wis., and Ponkapog Pond, Mass., re¬ 
spectively. Names from these localities are 
quoted entirely on the authority of these gentle¬ 
men : 
1. (Red-Breasted Merganser, Sheldrake or 
Fish Duck) Merganser serrator.- —Bee 
Scie De Mer, La. (Beyer) ; Sea Bec-Scie, 
Mobile, Ala. (Trumbull) ; Sea Sawbill, La. 
(Mcllhenny). 
2. (Hooded Merganser, or Little Sheldrake 
or Fish Duck) Lophodytes cucullatus .— 
Bee Scie, La. (Beyer) ; Chef Menteur, La.; 
Mobile, Ala. (Trumbull) ; Hairy Crown, 
Currituck Sound, N. C.; Straw-Bill, Mud 
Lake, Ark.; Cottonhead, La. (Mcllhenny). 
3. (Mallard) Anas platyrliynchos. —Canard 
Franqais, La. (Beyer). 
4. (Black Mallard) Anas rubripes. —Velvet 
Duck, Delavan Lake, Wis.; Canard Noir, 
La. (Mcllhenny). 
5. (Southern Black Mallard) Anas fulvi- 
gula*. —Black Duck, Southern Florida; 
Summer Duck, Southern Florida; Vinton 
and Cameron, La.; Matagorda and Rock- 
port, Texas; Summer French Duck, Mis¬ 
sissippi Delta, La.; Chef Menteur, La.; 
Summer Black Mallard, Canard Noir 
d’Ete, La. (Mcllhenny) ; Summer Mal¬ 
lard, Mexican Mallard, Mexican French 
Duck, Mississippi Delta, La.; Ireland Mal¬ 
lard, Chef Menteur, La.; Canard Des 
Isles, La. (Beyer). 
6. (Gadwall of Gray Duck) Chaulelasmus 
streperus .— Canard Gris, La. (Beyer) ; 
Redwing, Mud Lake and Lake Wapanoca, 
Ark.; Shuttlecock, Apalachicola and St. 
Vincent Island, Fla. 
7- (Widgeon or Bai.dpatf.) Mareca americana. 
—Zin-Zin, La. (Beyer) ; Whistling Duck, 
La. (Mcllhenny) ; female called Gray 
Duck 4 at Mud Lake, Ark.; Gum Cove, La., 
and Rockport, Texas; Bluebill, Bluebill 
Widgeon, Ponkapog, Mass.; Bald Wid- 
4 As Trumbull remarks (p. 37), the term gray duck is 
more loosely applied than any other vernacular duck 
name. Any unknown or little known duck, to which the 
name can be given with any pertinence, is likely to be 
called a gray duck. I have found it used as noted above 
and as a designation for the gadwall at Chef Menteur, 
La.; Galveston, Tex., and Mud Lake, Ark. It is in 
common use for the pintail in Washington and Oregon, 
and Trumbull, besides finding it applied to these species 
in other localities, learned that it means the female 
mallard in several eastern shooting grounds. Often 
where this name is used for the female of both the 
widgeon and gadwall, the males are considered distinct 
species. 
