343. Of the meaning of _chaousarou_, the name given by the Indians to this fish, we have no knowledge. It is now known as the bony-scaled pike, or gar pike, _Lepidosteus osseus_. It is referred to by several early writers after Champlain. "I saw," says Sagard, "in the cabin of a Montagnais Indian a certain fish, which some call Chaousarou, as big as a large pike. It was only an ordinary sized one, for many larger ones are seen, eight, nine, and ten feet long, as is said. It had a snout about a foot and a half long, of about the same shape as that of the snipe, except that the extremity is blunt and not so pointed, and of a large size in proportion to the body. It has a double row of teeth, which are very sharp and dangerous;... and the form of the body is like that of a pike, but it is armed with very stout and hard scales, of silver gray color, and difficult to be pierced."--_Sagard's History of Canada_, Bk. _iii_. p. 765; _Laverdière_. Sagard's work was published in 1636. He had undoubtedly seen this singular fish; but his description is so nearly in the words of Champlain as to suggest that he had taken it from our author. Creuxius, in his History of Canada, published at Paris in 1664, describes this fish nearly in the words of Champlain, with an engraving sufficiently accurate for identification, but greatly wanting in scientific exactness. He adds, "It is not described by ancient authors, probably because it is only found in the Lake of the Iroquois;" that is, in Lake Champlain. From which it may be inferred that at that time it had not been discovered in other waters. By the French, he says, it is called _piscis armatus_. This is in evident allusion to its bony scales, in which it is protected as in a coat of mail. It is described by Dr. Kay in the Natural History of New York, Zoölogy, Part I. p 271. On Plate XLIII. Fig. 139, of the same work, the reader will observe that the head of the fish there represented strikingly resembles that of the chaousarou of Champlain as depicted on his map of 1612. The drawing by Champlain is very accurate, and clearly identifies the Gar Pike. This singular fish has been found in Lake Champlain, the river St. Lawrence, and in the northern lakes, likewise in the Mississippi River, where is to be found also a closely related species commonly called the alligator gar. In the Museum of the Boston Society of Natural History are several specimens, one of them from St. John's River, Florida, four feet and nine inches in length, of which the head is seventeen and a half inches. If the body of those seen by Champlain was five feet, the head two and a half feet would be in about the usual proportion.