I was re-reading this dictionary of New England expressions called "Yankee Talk,"by Robert Hendrickson, and it mentions even more cryptozoologic animals than I remember. I meant to pass the info on to Margaret, so here it is. (I'm actually not too sure when a mythical creature crosses over to cryptozoological, so some of these may not qualify)


1. Shagimaw

An imaginary creature of the woods with two feet like a moose and two like a bear.

2.Side-Hill Ranger

A mythical animal of the lumber camps. Cited as a common term in George Allen England's "Rural Locutions of Maine and Northern New Hampshire," Dialect Notes, Vol.IV (1914)

3.Champ

A fabled water creature said to reside in Vermont's Lake Champlain, the American counterpart of the Loch Ness Monster. Samuel Champlain first sighted the creature in 1609, describing it as a "barrell thick monster...[with a] horse-shaped head." Descriptions have varied since.

4.Lucivee

A "half-mythical" kind of wildcat also called the loup-cervier or Injun devil. Cited in George Allen England, "Rural Locutions of Maine and Northern New Hampshire," Dialect Notes, Vol. IV (1914).Pronounced lucy-vee.

5.(my favorite) Tree Squeak

An imaginary creature of the Maine woods, so named because it is said to squeak like tree limbs in the wind.


Don't that beat all get out? Incidentally, Milo and Inkblot are still alive. Maybe Milo is like a glam rocker of the cat world. He already has natural eyeliner.

Rock on, foo-foo head.