example there is an evident bias towards the recording of the larger mammals and birds as opposed to the smaller. Another bias is towards the ‘utilitarian’: most recorders paid special attention to what they considered to be useful animals and birds, i.e. those that were, or could be, a source of food or other commodities for the human population — the French word for such food animals is gibier i.e. ’game’, divided by one recorder5 into gros et menu [large and small], though in the eighteenth century even the smaller passerine birds could be counted as game — as they still are today in southern Europe, including southern France. The other useful category comprised the fur—bearing mammals of value in the fur trade or in ’pe/leterie’ — to use the word current in eighteenth century French.

Before considering what the records tell us about the ecological role and significance of mammals and birds in the forests of the island we need first to identify the individual species from the French names recorded. As will become evident there are very few problems in identifying the mammal species named, though there are a number of uncertainties among the birds.

INTERPRETING THE NAMES: THE MAMMALS

Liévre — The French word for ’hare’, used by Roma (1750) and Franquet (1751) for the snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus). Denys (1672) and Pichon (1760) used the word lapin (French for rabbit), and Pichon in one instance writes lapin b/anc (white rabbit) for the same species. Both names have continued to be used for the species in Acadian-French.6

écureuil — The French word for ’squirrel', applied to New World squirrels, two species of which occur on the island. La Ronde (1721) seems to have written 'ecureux de vo/an’ which must refer to the flying squirrel (G/aucomys sabrinus). He thus did not bother to record what must have been the more common red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) — nor did any other of the French recorders.

5 Franquet 1751.

e Massignon 1962, p. 254.

146

Rat musque' — A French name given to the muskrat (0ndatra zibeth/cus), a species not found in the Old World. Pichon (1760) is the only recorder who noted it under its full name. However Roma (1750) recorded that the rat killed voles [mu/ots] in vole-plague years. It is very unlikely that he can be referring to the common brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) as it is thought to have only reached North America from Europe in the late eighteenth century7. The only species it can be is the muskrat.

Mulot — The French word for the field mouse or vole, transferred to New World equivalents. The species referred to by all the recorders (Roma 1750; Franquet 1751; La Roque 1752; Pichon 1760) is the one that periodically destroyed the crops of the settlersf’ The most likely candidate is the red-backed vole (C/eithrionmys gapperl).9

Souris — The French word for ’mouse’. Roma (1750) in his ’treatise’ on the ’plague mouse’ or mulot, distinguished it from the sour/s which he said was a better climber and was more timid and less stupid. He can only be referring to the deer mouse (Peromyscus man/cu/atus) which is recorded as a good climber”.

Loup — The French word for the wolf, applied by La Ronde (1721) to what was the same species in the New World (Canis lupus).

Renard — The French word for the fox, applied by five recorders (Table 2-1) to the same species in the New World (Vu/pes vu/pes).

7 MacDonald and Barratt (1993) state that it was first recorded in England in 1728 and had reached North America by 1775. However, Fortler (1983) notes that it has been found at Louisbourg in archaeological remains dating from at least 1745.

8 This same species was called simply the rat by Pensens, the commandant at Port La-Joie, in his report to the minister of the Marine on the vole plague of 1728 (31 October 1728: PAC, AC, 01‘s, Vol. 10, fol. 162).

9 MacQuarrie (1987) considered that the ‘plague mouse‘ was likely to have been the meadow vole Microtus pensylvannicus. However, I consider that three of Roma's pieces of evidence point rather to the red-backed vole: the mulot was a woodland species (this, confirmed by all the recorders, fits only the red-backed vole); it made substantial underground food caches for the winter, and it was able to climb (although not as well as the semis (probably the deer mouse). These last two properties are characteristic of the red-backed vole as described by Hamilton and Whitaker (1979), and do not seem to apply to the meadow vole.

‘° Hamilton and Whitaker 1979, p. 190.