The following is very instructive both for the influence of the natural phenomena upon the terminology and for the fluctuating character of the terminology itself:--The wild rice is an important article of food for the tribes of the west by the Great Lakes; three important branches of the Algonquin, and also smaller tribes, name one or two months from this plant. The Ojibwa call August or September the moon of the gathering of wild rice, or the wild rice moon; the Ottawa, Menomini, and Potawatomi have the wild-rice-gathering moon, which among the last-named corresponds to the end of September and the beginning of October; the Dakota call September ‘ripe rice moon’, October is the moon in which the wild rice is gathered and laid up for the winter; according to Neill, September is the moon when the rice is laid up to dry, October the ‘drying-rice moon’; according to Long, September is ‘the beginning’, October ‘the end of wild rice’; according to Atwater September is ‘the moon when the wild rice is ripe’[742]. A list of the Dakota months gives:--January, the hard moon; February, the raccoon moon; March, the sore-eye moon; April, the moon in which the geese lay eggs, or when the streams are navigable,--among the Teton, moon when the ducks come back; May, the planting moon; June, the moon when the strawberries are red,--Teton, when the seed-pods of the Indian turnip mature, or when the _wipazoha_ (berries) are good; July, the moon when the choke-cherries are ripe, or when the geese shed their feathers,--Teton, the deer-rutting moon; August, the harvest moon,--Teton, the moon when the plums are red; September, the moon when rice is laid up to dry,--Teton, moon in which the leaves become brown; October, the drying-rice moon,--Teton, moon when the wind shakes off the leaves, or corn-harvest moon; November, the deer-rutting moon,--Teton, the winter moon; December, the moon when the deer shed their horns,--Teton, the midwinter moon[743].