APPENDIX 2

THE MAMMALS AND BIRDS OF THE FORESTS OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND NAMED IN THE RECORDS OF THE FRENCH PERIOD (1534-1758)

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this Appendix is to extract from the records of the French period all references to the native mammals and birds of the forests of Ile Saint-Jean and to identify as far as possible the species named. I will also analyse all of the associated incidental information on the fauna in order to determine what the records tell us about the ecological role of mammals and birds in the forests of the island.

Table 2-1 gives a numerical summary of the records for the various species.1 I have loosely interpreted ‘forest bird’ to include all terrestrial species (including any birds, even if aquatic, that nested in trees) I have thus excluded only aquatic and shore birds such as ducks, geese and waders. Similarly, I have included all the references to mammals except for aquatic species, i.e. the seals and the walrus. (All of the relevant extracts have been assembled in the Addendum at the end of this appendix.)

A total of nine recorders made comments of varying length on the mammals and birds of the island. These range from one recorder (Cartier 1534) who mentioned only a single species to three recorders (La Ronde 1721, Roma 1750 and Franquet 1751) who not only listed from eleven to twenty species but also made short comments on the ecology and/or abundance of some. All of these recorders except one had direct personal

' l have not included the species that Thomas Pichon lists and describes in his chapter on “the different animals on both islands”

[Pichon, 1760, pp. 81-85 in the French version; pp. 97-103 in the English], partly because ifthey apply to either island it is most likely to He Royalle [Cape Breton], where he spent several years, rather than to lie Saint—Jean, where he made only one short visit. I say ‘if because of Pichon's habit of lifting material from other authors without acknowledgement (for example some of his animal ‘folklore' comes from Nicolas Denys 1672). For what it is worth, his mammal list ‘for the two islands' comprises the beaver, bear, moose, caribou, wolverine (quincajou), fox, porcupine, otter, marten, mink, muskrat, hare, lynx (listed under two names: loup cervier and pichou — I identified the latter name from Belisle (1979) — the name is not mentioned by either Massignon (1962), nor by Fortier (1983) who otherwise discusses all of the other species listed by Pichon), and chevreui/ (the roe deer in Europe; a name for the white-tailed deer in Acadian French (Massignon 1962, pp. 244— 45)).

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experience of the islandz, though the amount of time they spent on the island varied from only a few hours over a two day period for Jacques Cartier in 1534 to f0urteen years for Jean-Pierre Roma.3 However, given the elusive nature of most of the mammals, as well as of some of the birds, it is unlikely that all of the recorders would have seen every animal that they mentioned — some of their information is likely to have been second- hand from the French settlers living on the island or even from the native Mi’kmaq.

Apart from the likelihood of some of the recorders using second-hand information, the reliability of one of them, Thomas Pichon, is questionable in another way. As I have noted in the biography attached to his extract (Pichon 1760F), I am doubtful whether anything that Pichon wrote concerning Ile Saint-Jean in his Lettres et Mémoires was based on his own observations — most of it seems to have come from the census and survey carried out by Joseph de La Roque in 1752. However, Pichon's faunal records are not found in La Roque’s report (in fact La Roque made no mention whatever of the wildlife in his otherwise comprehensive census and landscape survey), and since there is evidence that Pichon, did visit the island during the period when La Roque was carrying out his census“, it is not impossible that his faunal records, which are the only ones specific to particular locations on the island, are genuine.

Another question concerns the degree to which there is a bias on the part of the recorders in the selection of the animals that they recorded. For

2 The recorder who seems not to have visited the island is the author of the document that l have called ‘Anon. 17605?'. It was compiled at an unknown date by someone who seems to have been an official in the Department of the Marine in France. However, he must have obtained his information from someone who had direct experience of the island.

3 See Table 1 in the main text for the length of time each recorder spent on the island.

‘ Crowley 1979. He accompanied the governor, the Count de Raymond, to whom he was secretary, on his tour of the island In August 1752.