black cats and rats de bois

[Michael Mccafferty]

On Tue, 16 Jul 2002, David Costa wrote:

>
> In my experience, the French 'Algonquianist missionaries' called the raccoon
> 'chat sauvage',

standard for all French in les Pays d'en haut.

 and the fisher 'pecan'. They might have been more variable
> about skunks, tho the Illinois missionaries at least called them 'be(s)te
> puante'.

yes. precisely. stinking beast

They tended to call the possum 'rat de bois'.

Yes. exactly. woodrat

Michael McCafferty