Note II-3 — Chapter II · ITINERARY, CONTINUED: ST. PAUL TO LEECH LAKE, SEPTEMBER 22D, 1805-JANUARY 31ST, 1806.

Outard Blanche, correctly Outarde Blanche, means White Bustard. The bustard is a very large bird, many species of which inhabit Europe, Asia, and Africa, but none America. It may, therefore, be well to explain that outarde was a name given by the early French in America to the Canada goose (Bernicla canadensis); but that since this goose is mostly black, the phrase outarde blanche would rather indicate the snow goose (Chen hyperboreus), which when adult is pure white excepting the tips of the wings. I remember seeing somewhere a statement, the source of which I cannot now recall, to the effect that the phrase meant White Buzzard, not White Bustard; in which case the French form would be Busard Blanc. Major Taliaferro speaks of White Buzzard in his autobiography, as printed in Minn. Hist. Coll., VI. Part 2, 1891, p. 225, p. 234, etc. Major Forsyth calls him White Bustard. However this may be, it is certain that there was a chief of the name of Mahgossau, who was called Old Bustard, and for many years known to the whites by the latter designation. For an account of the stabbing of this chief in a whisky-bout, in the summer of 1820, see letter of Lawrence Taliaferro, Indian agent at St. Peters, dated Aug. 5th, 1820, in Minn. Hist. Coll., II. Part 2, 1864, 2d ed. 1881, p. 104.