THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
A Labrador Spring 
 
AN EARLY SPRING ARRIVAL IN SOUTHERN LABRADOR. 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
A LABRADOR 
 SPRING 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES W. TOWNSEND, M. D, 
 
 Author of ' 'Jtlong the Labrador Coast, ' ' etc. 
 With Illustrations from Photographs 
 
 BOSTON <i* DANA ESTES & 
 COMPANY 4 MDCCCCX 
 
Copyright, 1910 
 BY DANA ESTES & COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 Electrotyfed and Printed by 
 THE COLONIAL PRESS 
 C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U.S.A. 
 
k- 
 T4 
 
 Preface 
 
 PRESIDENT LOWELL in his inaugural address 
 said to the professional man that " a firm 
 grasp of some subject lying outside of his 
 vocation is an advantage." The following 
 chapters are the result of a five-weeks' trip 
 in May and June, 1909, by one who tries to 
 live up to this advice. Although that subject, 
 as may be gathered from these chapters, is 
 ornithology, yet it may also be gathered that all 
 branches of natural history on this Labrador 
 coast were a delight to the writer, and that 
 human studies, both Indian and white, came 
 in for a full share of his observations. And 
 perhaps this is well, for, as Professor Shaler 
 said, " the most of our kind are not natural- 
 ists but humanists." In any event it is hoped 
 that the following lines, which have been used 
 by the Harvard Travellers Club, are appro- 
 priate : 
 
 v 
 
PREFACE 
 
 "He traded not with luker sotted, 
 He went for knowledge and he got it." 
 
 The substance of Chapter VIII originally 
 appeared in two papers published in the Auk 
 in April and July, 1909, and part of Chapter 
 IV, in the Auk of April, 1910, and I am indebted 
 to the editor for permission to republish in 
 this form. I wish to express my thanks to 
 Professor M. L. Fernald and Mr. Walter Deane 
 for botanical identifications, to Prof. E. C. 
 Jeffrey and his assistant Mr. E. W. Sinnott 
 for the photograph of the little larch and the 
 photomicrograph of its cross-section, and par- 
 ticularly to Mr. A. C. Bent for some of the 
 illustrations and for his companionship in this 
 Labrador Spring. 
 
 VI 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 PREFACE v 
 
 I. A LABRADOR SPRING n 
 
 II. FROM SEVEN ISLANDS TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 36 
 
 III. AN ACADIAN VILLAGE 64 
 
 IV. THE COURTSHIPS OF SOME LABRADOR BIRDS 83 
 
 V. THE CRUISE OF " LA BELLE MARGUERITE " 
 
 FROM ESQUIMAUX POINT TO NATASHQUAN 103 
 
 VI. THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS . . . 130 
 
 VII. THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS .... 149 
 
 VIII. WINGS AND FEET IN THE AIR AND UNDER 
 
 WATER 180 
 
 IX. SOME LABRADOR TREES 206 
 
 X. SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 220 
 
 INDEX 251 
 
 vn 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 PAGB 
 
 AN EARLY SPRING ARRIVAL IN SOUTHERN LABRADOR 
 
 (See page i^'f) Frontispiece 
 MOUNTAIN SAXIFRAGE ON LIMESTONE CLIFFS OF ES- 
 QUIMAUX ISLAND 17 
 
 NEARER VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN SAXIFRAGE . . 17 
 SNOWBANK AND VEGETATION JUNE 4 . . . .30 
 
 SNOWBANK AND VEGETATION JUNE 13 ... 30 
 
 INDIAN MOTHER AND TEN DAYS' OLD INFANT . . 37 
 
 THE TOWN OF SEVEN ISLANDS 37 
 
 HUDSON'S BAY POST OF MINGAN. MOUNTAIN RIDGE 
 
 IN THE DISTANCE 45 
 
 THE BARRIER MOUNTAIN RIDGE BACK OF MINGAN 
 
 SHOWING POISED BOULDER 45 
 
 THE BEST HUNTER OF THE TRIBE, JUST BACK FROM 
 
 THE NORTHWEST RIVER 50 
 
 A MONTAGNAIS COUPLE AT MlNGAN .... 50 
 
 INDIAN MOTHER AND CHILD AT MINGAN ... 60 
 TOADSTOOL - SHAPED LIMESTONE ROCKS AT ESQUI- 
 MAUX ISLE ......... 60 
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR THE FISHING SEASON ... 73 
 THE PROCESSION AT THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI 
 
 AT ESQUIMAUX POINT 78 
 
 ix 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 RAISING THE HOST AT THE " REPOSITORY " 78 
 RETURNING TO THE CHURCH OF ST. PIERRE AT THE 
 
 FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI 82 
 
 NEST OF GREAT BLACK - BACKED GULL ... 86 
 
 NEST OF EIDER DUCK 86 
 
 ENTRANCE TO PUFFIN BURROW, BALD ISLAND . . 96 
 WATER WORN LIMESTONE ROCKS AT BALD ISLAND. 
 
 NESTING SHELVES FOR RAZOR - BILLED AUKS . 96 
 
 " LA BELLE MARGUERITE " AND OUR GALLANT CREW 105 
 
 MATHIAS AND MARTIAL AND THE BEAVER . . . 115 
 
 THE BEAVER SKIN , . .' 115 
 
 A CORNER OF A CORMORANT ROOKERY AT SEAL ROCK 12^ 
 
 NEST AND EGGS OF DOUBLE - CRESTED CORMORANT . 125 
 A BLACK Fox PARK AT PIASHTE - BAI . . .136 
 PIASHTE - BAI RIVER AND LAKE FROM THE BEGINNING 
 
 OF THE HIGH LAND OF THE INTERIOR . . 136 
 
 THREE LITTLE INDIAN GIRLS 143 
 
 TWO MONTAGNAIS COMPANIONS AT MlNGAN . -143 
 INDIANS SHAVING SEAL SKIN AT THE ISLES DES COR- 
 
 NEILLES . . . ... . . . 154 
 
 THE PAPOOSE . . , ' . . . . . 154 
 
 WIGWAM IN PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTION AT MINGAN 157 
 
 COMPLETED WIGWAM 157 
 
 WIGWAM AND INDIAN FAMILY AT PIASHTE - BAI . 159 
 
 INDIANS AT THE ISLES DES CORNEILLES . . . 159 
 
 LOADING THE CANOE 163 
 
 THE EMBARKATION OF THE MONTAGNAIS AT NATASH- 
 
 QUAN FOR MUSQUARRO . . . . . 163 
 OUR HOST, THE SALMON - FISHER AT MINGAN, AND 
 
 His OLD COMPANION 170 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MR. J. A. WILSON, FACTOR AT THE H. B. C. POST 
 
 AT MlNGAN, ON THE STEPS OF THE COMPANY'S 
 
 HOUSE BUILT BY MR. DONALD ALEXANDER SMITH, 
 
 NOW LORD STRATHCONA AND MONT ROYAL . 170 
 
 THE LAST LEAF ON THE TREE, SAID TO BE 104 YEARS 
 
 OLD 179 
 
 MY ESCORT AMONG THE INDIANS AT MINGAN . .190 
 PIERRE OF PIASHTE - BAI AND THE BEAVER, SHOWING 
 WEBBED HIND FOOT OF THE BEAVER, AND 
 
 " SKIN BOOTS " OF MAN 197 
 
 DWARFED SPRUCES DEAD AND ALIVE AT ESQUIMAUX 
 
 ISLAND 205 
 
 ANCIENT LARCH AT QUATACHOO 205 
 
 LARCH TREE SIXTEEN YEARS OLD, FROM BOG AT 
 
 ESQUIMAUX ISLAND; SLIGHTLY ENLARGED . . 211 
 PHOTOMICROGRAPH OF SECTION OF TRUNK SHOWING 
 
 SIXTEEN ANNUAL RINGS 211 
 
 THE OLD SALMON - FISHER OF MINGAN TENDING 
 
 His NETS 221 
 
 THE MINGAN RIVER BACK OF THE H. B. C. POST . 227 
 
 NEST OF THE PIGEON HAWK 227 
 
 FALLS OF THE MINGAN 235 
 
 THE ROMAINE RIVER NORTH OF ESQUIMAUX POINT 235 
 
 FALLS OF PIASHTE - BAI RIVER 243 
 
 NEAR THE FOOT OF THE FALLS ..... 243 
 BOG ENCROACHING ON POOL AND FOREST ENCROACH- 
 ING ON BOG 248 
 
 SPRUCE FOREST, SNOW - BANK AND THE RIVER OF THE 
 
 CROW . . . 248 
 
A Labrador Spring 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A LABRADOR SPRING 
 " Come, gentle Spring, ethereal Mildness, come." Thomson. 
 
 OOME years ago in Labrador in late July, 
 I was interested to see within the space 
 of a few yards all stages of the seasons from 
 mid-winter to mid-summer. In the shelter 
 of a rugged cliff was a snow-drift as white and 
 devoid of life as winter itself. At its edge, for 
 the space of a few inches, the ground was bare 
 and brown; grasses and procumbent willows 
 showed no evidence of life. A little further 
 away the first signs of spring were visible in the 
 swelling buds of the willows ; a few feet further 
 and one came on the bake-apple and Labrador 
 tea in bud; still further removed in space 
 from grim winter, they were as much in blos- 
 som as in mid-summer, while at a distance of 
 
 11 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 three or four yards more, the ripening berries 
 of autumn could be found. Here was no 
 need of long journeys to pass from winter to 
 summer, nor of long tarrying in one place for 
 the seasons to pass. The melting snow-drift, 
 the brief spring and the short arctic summer 
 condensed all the seasons in space and time. 
 
 Spring is a long process in New England. 
 From the first appearance of the blue-bird 
 and skunk cabbage in early March or even 
 in late February, to the departure of the last 
 black-poll warbler for the north and the falling 
 of the apple blossoms in early June, spring 
 dallies along the way for over three months. 
 Not only does spring dally in this temperate 
 region, but, in its early progress, it sustains 
 frequent interruptions eruptions one might 
 call them if that hot word can be used in a 
 cold sense of winter. 
 
 I have always longed to watch the arrival 
 of spring in the country, but to absent oneself 
 from one's duties for over three months is 
 plainly out of the question. The northern 
 spring, however, has its advantages in these 
 hustling times; it is a hustler itself. The 
 change from mid-winter to mid-summer is so 
 
 12 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 brief that northern regions are said to have no 
 spring. The whole glorious ecstasy of burst- 
 ing buds and migrating birds is concentrated 
 into the space of a few weeks or even days. 
 As the bake-apple springs into flower when 
 the snowbank melts, so does spring burst 
 upon the scene in these regions when winter 
 departs. 
 
 It was with great eagerness therefore that 
 I explored the country on my arrival at Es- 
 quimaux Point in southern Labrador on May 
 24th for signs of spring, fearing that I might 
 be too late, and that the summer had already 
 come. Fortunately it was a tardy season 
 and all was still wintery. Cartwright in his 
 Labrador journal of May 21, 1771, one hundred 
 and thirty-eight years and three days before, 
 made this record: "The first green leaf ap- 
 peared to-day, which was a currant/* I found 
 some wild currant x bushes but they were only 
 in bud and the leaves did not appear until a 
 few days later. The alders still kept their 
 buds closed, but they had already begun to 
 hang out their " golden curls," and the yellow 
 
 1 The scientific names of the birds and plants will be 
 found in the Index after the common names. 
 
 13 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 pollen floated on the pools of water that came 
 from the dwindling snowbanks. Snowbanks 
 were everywhere, the largest often on the 
 warmest or southern slopes, a paradox that 
 could be explained by the fact that in the 
 southern lees, the snow, driven by the pre- 
 vailing northerly gales of winter, had accumu- 
 lated to great depths, and, although exposed 
 to more sunlight, took longer to melt than 
 did the smaller banks on the wind-swept 
 northern exposures. The larch and the canoe 
 birch, the mountain ash, and the red osier 
 were all bare and wintery, but on the ground 
 an occasional fresh grass blade, or the bud 
 of the cow parsnip, Cartwright's " alex- 
 ander," could be found. 
 
 The presence of such arctic birds as snow- 
 buntings, making the green spruces look like 
 Christmas trees when they perched on their 
 branches, added to the wintery aspect of the 
 scene, and although the hardier summer birds 
 like the robin, fox sparrow, Lincoln's sparrow, 
 white -throated and white-crowned sparrows 
 had arrived and were in full song, most of the 
 summer residents were still tarrying farther 
 south, and had been passed during our more 
 
 14 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 rapid railroad migration to the north. I 
 breathed a sigh of relief at the result of this 
 hasty survey of the situation, for I had arrived in 
 time, and in the next four weeks I was to be 
 present at the rapid change from winter to 
 summer, at the miracle of the Labrador 
 spring. 
 
 Although there were no fresh green leaves 
 to be seen, there was no absence of this colour 
 in vegetation, and it was not limited to the 
 cone-bearing trees to which the name evergreen 
 is usually limited. These latter are quickly enu- 
 merated, namely the black, white and a few red 
 spruces, the balsam fir and two kinds of ground 
 juniper, for there were no pines in this region, 
 and spruce and fir were by far the prevailing 
 trees. On the ground of the bogs or barrens, 
 which extend their vegetation into the spruce 
 forests, the universal sphagnum moss as well 
 as many other mosses were evergreen. As 
 the various lichens which abound in Labrador 
 assume every colour of the rainbow, some of 
 these also were green. Clumps of pitcher-plant 
 leaves were everywhere in the bogs, looking 
 often as fresh and intact as if they had been pre- 
 served in a green-house, instead of lying buried 
 
 15 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 under the snow for seven long months. Many 
 of these, however, merged from green to red, 
 to magenta and deep mahogany colour. The 
 dark green shining leaves of the goldthread 
 also came out intact from the cold storage 
 of winter, and the laurel and Labrador tea 
 formed great clumps of colour which shaded 
 off from pale olive green to dark brown. 
 Another abundant evergreen in the bogs 
 was the cassandra or leather-leaf, pale green 
 and silvery in colour with drooping leaves, 
 while the andromeda, undismayed by the long 
 winter, carried its dark green, narrow leaves 
 erect. These last two and the laurel were in 
 full blossom by the end of the third week in 
 June, but now were blossomless. 
 
 In the woods the dwarf cornel came out from 
 the winter with leaves intact, but blushing 
 deep red, while, forming a carpet with its 
 tiny green leaves and running branches, was 
 everywhere the snowberry, appropriately 
 called Mogenes, or born of the snow. Another 
 broad leaf evergreen to be found especially 
 on gravelly open places near the shores, and 
 one which, prone on the ground, spread like 
 great mats over several square feet of surface, 
 
 16 
 
MOUNTAIN SAXIFRAGE ON LIMESTONE CLIFFS OF ESQUIMAUX ISLAND. 
 
 NEARER VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN SAXIFRAGE. 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 was the bearberry. This also came into 
 flower before we left. 
 
 Although not a new leaf bud had opened, 
 there was one conspicuous exception to the 
 flowerless vegetation, and this was the moun- 
 tain saxifrage which grew in great abundance 
 on the limestone cliffs of Esquimaux Island. 
 It is a tufted moss-like plant, the leaves ever- 
 green and inconspicuous, but the flowers, of a 
 wonderful shade of pink, so crowded the ends 
 of the short stems that they formed glorious 
 masses of colour, hanging in festoons from the 
 cliffs or studding the rocks in great bosses. 
 It was in full flower when we first discovered it 
 on May 25th, and it exhaled a fragrance like 
 that of the trailing arbutus, but much more 
 delicate. 
 
 Another sign of spring was the continued 
 trilling of toads which greeted my ears that first 
 evening at the Pointe aux Esquimaux, - 
 a sound which is always associated in my mind 
 with pussy willows and a brown, wet country- 
 side, but with the glorious promise of bright 
 flowers, migrating birds and the coming of sum- 
 mer. Although this sound is at times almost 
 overpowering in its intensity in New England 
 
 17 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 where toads abound, it is rarely noticed ex- 
 cept by the initiated, and to those who have 
 not consciously heard it, it is rather difficult 
 to describe. Gadow speaks of this love-song 
 of the toad, for love-song it certainly is, as 
 " a peculiar little noise, something like the 
 whining bleat of a lamb." As most people 
 appear to be deaf to the bird notes and even 
 bird songs that may actually fill the air about 
 them, so are they also, but to an even greater 
 degree, deaf to this humble music of the toad ; 
 a song which, from its association with the 
 season at least, has its charms. The louder 
 and better known notes of the hylas were 
 absent on these shores. 
 
 In these northern regions spring advances 
 by bounds, and the saying that " nature 
 never makes leaps " was certainly contra- 
 dicted by an experience on the eleventh day of 
 June. On this day, while we were eating our 
 dinner on the banks of the Romaine River, 
 enjoying the wonderful beauty of the scene, lis- 
 tening to the undertone of the rapids and the 
 incisive song of the redstart, and breathing 
 in the aromatic, incense-like perfume of the 
 alder catkins, a birch, released by the melting 
 
 18 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 of the snow, suddenly leaped up to greet the 
 sun. It was still bare as in winter, but in a 
 few days it would be clothed with the fresh 
 green that its recently escaped companions had 
 already assumed. 
 
 Birches and especially alders accommodate 
 themselves to the winter snows, and submis- 
 sively bend before them, but with the coming 
 of summer their bonds melt away and they 
 arise unharmed from their supine position. 
 In this winter pressure the birch very rarely 
 breaks, the alder, almost never. Not so the 
 spruce, the larch and the fir, and green-stick 
 fractures of these trees abound, and sometimes 
 in the lee of a bank where the snow settles 
 in deep, heavy masses, these trees show the 
 scars of many winters by a series of partial 
 breaks. In some of these the trunk assumes 
 a position at right angles with its original 
 growth, and parallel with the ground; in 
 other cases the trunk points downward at first, 
 but in any event, unless fatally wounded, the 
 tree again aspires, only to be beaten down 
 again perchance in another winter. Around 
 the breaks calli in the form of rounded 
 masses of wood form just as they do about 
 
 19 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 broken bones, until the tree presents a woe- 
 fully crooked and crippled appearance. One 
 of these warty calli as big as a man's head 
 was shown me at Natashquan, where it had 
 been preserved as a curiosity. The difficulties 
 of Labrador tree-life are great! 
 
 Perhaps the most active week in this brief 
 spring drama was that of the third to the tenth 
 of June. On the third I found white violets 
 covering a sunny bank hitherto bare, while 
 a few marsh mangolds, their bright yellow 
 flowers contrasting well with their dark, almost 
 black leaves, appeared on the edges of a brook 
 fed by a snowbank. Near by a few ferns were 
 pushing up their " fiddle-heads " from the 
 rich mould, and the cow parsnip was sending 
 up its buds of folded leaves beside the gigantic 
 dead stalks which had survived the winter 
 storms. The dwarf willows and birch were trying 
 to show green in their leaf-buds, and the larger 
 buds of the mountain ash were slowly unfolding. 
 On the next day I found the first white flower 
 of the goldthread, and on the fifth the cur- 
 rant, the first shrub to leaf out, was in blossom. 
 
 June 7th was a red letter day in the spring 
 calendar. The red osier, hitherto so bereft 
 
 20 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 of foliage, but noticeable by its red and green 
 stems, began to thrust out its opposite, pointed 
 leaf-buds, canoe birch leaves were half out, 
 the fiddle-heads were unfolding, and, like 
 magic, groups of tiny orchids had sprung into 
 being. This orchid, a calypso, with its broad, 
 rounded leaf rose two or three inches from the 
 moss, each plant bearing a single flower, 
 a five rayed one, between pink and purple 
 in colour, with a brilliant gold spot on the 
 delicately veined lip. One is apt to associate 
 orchids with tropical or at least warm climates 
 only, but this little orchid extends its range 
 from Labrador to Alaska. Near where I first 
 found this orchid on Esquimaux Island, there 
 were numerous arrivals among the birds, for the 
 night before had been a favourable one for 
 migration, and small birds that feed by day 
 must of necessity use the night for migration. 
 The association of orchids, spruce forests, 
 snowbanks, magnolia warblers and redstarts 
 certainly seemed an unusual one, and I satis- 
 fied my enjoyment of the incongruous by 
 following a redstart until his brilliant red and 
 black plumage was set off by a background 
 of dark spruces and white snow. 
 
 21 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 Another flower, almost as charming as the 
 orchid, I found for the first time on this day, 
 springing up from its procumbent mass of 
 dark, evergreen foliage, the mountain avens 
 or dryas, a rock nymph rather than a wood 
 nymph, however, for it grew on the scanty 
 soil of the limestone ledges close to the 
 sea. The leaves are arrow-head shaped, 
 dark, shining green above, white below, while 
 the flowers, growing in abundance on short 
 erect stems, open their lovely white cups, 
 like single roses, to the sky. Where the buds 
 of these conspicuous flowers were hidden 
 but a week before, I do not know, although 
 I had collected and pressed this pretty 
 evergreen without even suspecting that it 
 would be covered with conspicuous flowers a 
 week later. The mountain avens extends its 
 range through arctic America even to Green- 
 land. 
 
 Another exceedingly pretty little flower, a 
 lilac coloured one, that sprang up on the lime- 
 stone rocks at this time, was especially notice- 
 able on account of its leaves which were cov- 
 ered with a white powder below. This was a 
 variety of the mealy primrose, and, curiously 
 
 22 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 enough, this variety had never been found 
 east of the Rocky Mountains before. 
 
 As in the Doone valley so here in Labrador 
 the words of John Ridd were appropriate, for 
 " the spring was in our valley now, creeping 
 first for shelter slyly in the pause of the bluster- 
 ing wind. . . . There she stayed and held 
 her revel, as soon as the fear of frost was gone ; 
 all the air was a fount of freshness, and the 
 earth of gladness, and the laughing waters 
 prattled of the kindness of the sun." 
 
 On this day also a snowbank which had cov- 
 ered a steep slope of Esquimaux Island, and 
 into which I had plunged to my waist in as- 
 cending to the higher land on May 25th, was 
 now breathing its last. I use this metaphor ad- 
 visedly, for much of the snow must disappear 
 by evaporation, and what melts does not all 
 stream down the hillside, but is largely absorbed, 
 as if in a great sponge, by the lichens and mosses. 
 These plants fulfil here the boy's definition 
 of a sponge as the only article with a bottom 
 full of holes that holds water. It is not, how- 
 ever, fair to say that these mosses had no 
 bottom, for, during the spring at least, they 
 are underlaid by hard ice. For example, on 
 
 23 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 June ist in a bog near the Natashquan River 
 I found ice everywhere about eight inches 
 below the surface of the moss. In a space where 
 there was no moss, and the dark brown, almost 
 black surface of the peaty mud attracted the 
 sun's rays, the ice was ten inches down. On the 
 same day in the lee of a bank a hundred feet 
 above the sea, the sun felt hot and the thermom- 
 eter registered 76 when exposed directly to its 
 rays. In the shade the temperature was 47, 
 and at a depth -of eleven inches in sandy, 
 peaty soil, all was hard frozen, and the ther- 
 mometer registered 32. No wonder vegeta- 
 tion, with such a cold region about its roots, 
 was tardy in its appearance. 
 
 On June nth near the Romaine River back 
 of Esquimaux Point I found the ice surface 
 ten inches beneath the moss in the bogs where 
 the surface was dry, while in wet places the 
 ice was sometimes twice as far away from the 
 surface, and in the mudholes and ponds, with 
 the sticks at hand I could find no hard ice 
 bottom at all. My friend remarked, in a mildly 
 sarcastic manner, as we were resting in one 
 of these endless Labrador bogs, that when 
 there were no birds in sight, and I had col- 
 
 24 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 lected all the botanical specimens within reach, 
 and had noted down all my observations, I 
 had always one resource left, I could dig 
 for ice. 
 
 My last exploration in this direction was 
 made on the 2ist of June. In a bog part way 
 up the mountains above the falls of the Mingan 
 River, I cut out a triangular piece of sphagnum 
 with my sheaf knife, and proceeded to dissect 
 the peaty soil below, and excavate it by hand. 
 Our Indian guide, who could not speak a word 
 of either English or French, gravely watched 
 the proceedings as I gradually dug until my 
 arm was inserted in the hole to the elbow. 
 At this depth the ground was very cold, but 
 I could feel no ice even with my knife-blade 
 thrust below. I then solemnly replaced the 
 triangular piece of sphagnum at the top of the 
 hole, and the Indian and I silently resumed 
 our march. I have often wondered whether 
 he thought I was seeking for gold, was per- 
 forming a religious ceremony or was merely a 
 little crazy. 
 
 Perhaps the most notable arrival of south- 
 erners on the day of the orchid and mountain 
 dryad, this glorious seventh of June was 
 
 25 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 a kingbird we saw at Esquimaux Island. 
 Now the kingbird is a very familiar and com- 
 monplace bird in New England, but it rarely ex- 
 tends its range to these boreal regions if we 
 can judge by the fact that no one but Audubon 
 had recorded it for southern Labrador before. 
 But on the last day of this week, June loth, 
 a day when my thermometer recorded the 
 highest temperature at noon, 62 in the shade, 
 although it was but 44 in morning and 48 
 at night, a day when I found the first bake- 
 apple flower, the shechootai of the Indians, 
 a burst of summer appeared in the form of 
 delightful little flycatchers that at once took 
 possession of all the alder thickets. The 
 flycatcher family is a confusing one, and even 
 the great Audubon was not infallible in this 
 direction. For example, he says in his " Birds 
 of America " of the wood pewee: " I have seen 
 them in Labrador," and on June 22, 1833, at 
 American Harbour near Natashquan he says 
 in his journal : " I heard a wood pewee." Now 
 the wood pewee is more southern in its range, 
 and Audubon was ignorant of the existence 
 of the yellow-bellied flycatcher, which was 
 first named by Baird some ten years later, and 
 
 26 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 which has a sweet, gentle whistling note re- 
 sembling very much one of the notes of the 
 wood pewee. 
 
 Bird songs are believed to be developments 
 from call-notes. In some cases this is very 
 evident. The European house sparrow repeats 
 its nerve-racking call-note so continuously, and 
 with such evident purpose on spring mornings, 
 that a thoughtful observer must admit that 
 this repetition constitutes the bird's love-song. 
 In other birds this connection is less evident, but 
 the evolution of the song can often be detected. 
 The wood pewee, by the irony of scientific fate 
 although technically classed among the non- 
 singing birds, has developed from its sweet and 
 simple whistling call-note a delightfully com- 
 plicated and truly musical composition, which, 
 without question, deserves the name of a song. 
 This in its delightful entirety is only vouch- 
 safed in the full ecstasy of passion. A first 
 cousin of the wood pewee, a bird that resembles 
 it as closely as the proverbial peas resemble 
 each other, has a very different song, which 
 indeed as a musical performance has no claim 
 to the name of song. This bird the least 
 flycatcher is also called the chebec from the 
 
 27 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 distinctness and frequency with which it calls 
 this incisive dissyllable in the spring. That 
 this constitutes the song with which it gives 
 vent to its emotions I think there can be no 
 question. Its call and conversational notes 
 are simple and short. Now our friend the 
 yellow-bellied flycatcher, whose arrival I have 
 just chronicled, a bird that is so abundant 
 on this southern Labrador coast after June 
 loth, has two distinct notes, one a soft, musical, 
 double whistle resembling that of its cousin 
 the wood pewee, and a harsh incisive je-let 
 very suggestive of the chebc of its other cousin 
 the least flycatcher. 
 
 I had always supposed that this latter note 
 was its song, while the whistle was merely 
 a call-note, but some observations I made in 
 this Labrador spring induced me to change my 
 mind, and tended to throw it into some con- 
 fusion on the subject. Thus I occasionally 
 stole on a bird unawares who was repeating 
 the sweet, double whistle at frequent intervals. 
 Here I said to myself is the first stage in the 
 evolution of a song, which in the course of 
 ages may become similar to the delightful 
 musical composition of the wood pewee, when 
 
 28 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 the bird, suddenly becoming aware of my 
 presence, changed its note to repeated ex- 
 plosions of its harsh je-let, and I was con- 
 vinced of the truth of my observations, and 
 concluded that the je-lt was merely an alarm 
 note and not a song. Unfortunately for this 
 theory, all the birds did not act in the same way, 
 and the same bird varied its course at different 
 times, for even when unaware of my undesir- 
 able presence, and in the absence of any visible 
 annoyance, these flycatchers would sometimes 
 repeat the ]e-l6t in a way that suggested the 
 pouring out of their souls in this soulless dis- 
 harmony a song not inferior to that of the 
 least flycatcher, and that is saying a good deal. 
 The same birds when disturbed would emit 
 at times the double whistle note. I was forced 
 to conclude therefore either that the yellow- 
 bellied flycatcher was developing one of two 
 songs, one to our ears musical, the other the 
 reverse, and, in this community at least, that 
 the particular song had not been determined, 
 or that the bird was developing two songs. 
 Let us hope that the soft and liquid whistle 
 may alone survive, and be further elaborated. 
 I am very sure, if the bird did but know it, his 
 
 29 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 sweetheart would prefer this song to the harsh 
 je-ltt. 
 
 A first cousin of the bake-apple, the arctic 
 raspberry, must have blossomed about this 
 same time, but I did not find it until June iyth, 
 when I came across great masses of the pinkish- 
 purple bloom in a marsh near the Mingan River. 
 Like the bake-apple, this modest raspberry 
 displays but two or three leaves besides its 
 blossoms, and is rarely more than two or three 
 inches high. 
 
 To return to the subject of snow and ice, I 
 would mention a snowbank in a lovely wooded 
 ravine near Esquimaux Point that I photo- 
 graphed with its leafless surroundings on June 
 4th. The region was almost birdless also, 
 for although I listened for an hour at this place 
 the only bird voice I heard was the hymn of the 
 hermit thrush but that one song was well 
 worth a full chorus of bird songs. After this, 
 hermit thrushes became common, but on this 
 day the song was heard for the first time in this 
 Labrador spring. On my walk to and from 
 the snowbank I found pipits, fox and white- 
 throated sparrows, juncos and snow buntings, 
 a few black-poll warblers, ruby-crowned king- 
 
 30 
 
SNOWBANK AND VEGETATION JUNE 4. 
 
 SNOWBANK AND VEGETATION JUNE 13. 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 lets and robins. On the thirteenth of June 
 I again sought the ravine, and photographed 
 from the same spot the much dwindled snow- 
 bank around which the alders, birches and 
 mountain ashes were unfolding their leaves. 
 The woods were far from silent, as they had 
 been nine days before. Pipits and snow bunt- 
 ings had departed for more northern regions, 
 but, in addition to the other birds found 
 before, the woods were full of warblers. Black- 
 polls were everywhere, lisping their simple, 
 lazy songs; brilliant magnolia warblers and 
 redstarts displayed their yellows and reds and 
 blacks, and sang unceasingly; Wilson's war- 
 blers, jet black in cap, elsewhere bright yellow, 
 appeared undisturbed by my presence and 
 sang at close range ; a rare for these parts 
 Nashville warbler gave vent to the emotions 
 of his heart from a clump of mountain ash 
 sprouts, and, lastly, from among this gentle 
 band of warblers, a Maryland yellow-throat 
 not only sang from some bushes, but in the 
 intensity of his passion was borne aloft to the 
 level of the next terrace, and dove to earth 
 again, filling the air with a confusing and sur- 
 prising explosion of his calls and songs. 
 
 31 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 In the alder thickets by the brook fed by the 
 departing snows, yellow-bellied flycatchers were 
 common, and the wild but tender warbling 
 song of an unseen Lincoln's sparrow came 
 suddenly to my ears, and, at not infrequent 
 intervals, the more mechanical, ringing song 
 of the winter wren burst forth. These two 
 birds are about as easy to see as wood mice. 
 The contrast was as great among the birds as 
 in the appearance of the snowbank and the 
 surrounding vegetation on these two days. 
 
 It is difficult in these days of specialism to 
 be an all-round naturalist, but one need not be 
 an entomologist, if one has been in Labrador 
 in summer, to be very conscious of the fact 
 that in this cold, brief spring mosquitoes and 
 flies were singularly conspicuous by their ab- 
 sence. Although I noted two mosquitoes on 
 June ist, and several on June igth, as well as 
 flies, they were gentle, harmless things, and 
 the cold kept down the ardour of their passion 
 for human blood. In fact it was not until the 
 last day June 2ist that I was attacked by 
 black flies and mosquitoes, and that very feebly 
 and in scanty numbers. It is interesting to 
 note that Cartwright on this same day of June 
 
 32 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 in 1771 records in his journal: "A very hot 
 day, and the moschettos bit for the first time 
 this year." 
 
 For this relief many thanks! I can speak 
 with feeling, for in these parts, as old Hakluyt 
 puts it: " There is a kind of small fly or gnat 
 that stingeth and offendeth sorely, leaving 
 many red spots on the face and other places 
 where she stingeth." Hakluyt happens to be 
 right about the sex, for the male stingeth not. 
 In another place he speaks of " certaine sting- 
 ing Gnattes, which bite so fiercely that the 
 place where they bite shortly after swelleth 
 and itcheth very sore." But for quaintness 
 of description and ingenuity of spelling, the 
 following from Whitbourne, writing early in 
 1600 of the Newfoundland mosquito, is per- 
 haps the most satisfactory: " Onely a very 
 little nimble Fly (the least of all other 
 Flies), which is called a Muskeito; those Flies 
 seeme to have a great power and authority 
 upon all loytering and idle people that come 
 to the New-found-land; for they have this 
 property that, when they find any such lying 
 lazily, or sleeping in the Woods, they will 
 presently bee more nimble to seize upon him 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 than any Sargeant will bee to arrest a man for 
 debt." 
 
 The temperature of this Labrador spring as 
 revealed by my thermometer was rather cool, 
 for, as Whittier says: 
 
 " The Gulf, midsummer, feels the chill blockade 
 Of icebergs stranded at its northern gate." 
 
 It averaged during the last part of May and 
 the first part of June about 43 Far., morning 
 and night, and 50 at midday in the shade. 
 At night the thermometer generally went down 
 to 32. During the last part of our stay in 
 June the average was 46, morning and night, 
 and 51 in the middle of the day. The 
 highest temperature was 62 at mid-day on 
 June loth. Unfortunately, like all good ex- 
 plorers, I broke my thermometer on June i yth, 
 so that I had no record for the last six days 
 of our stay. 
 
 Although it was often bitterly cold in the 
 wind and out of the sun, it was often delight- 
 fully warm when these conditions were re- 
 versed, and a complete sun-bath was sur- 
 prisingly free from any sensations of chilliness, 
 in fact " toasty warm " even in the neighbour- 
 hood of a snowbank which, by reflection, in- 
 
 34 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 tensified the sun's rays. It is difficult to 
 measure the exact value of the effect of the 
 sun's rays on the bare skin, but that it is con- 
 siderable is easily appreciated by those who 
 have tried sun-baths, and experienced the 
 pleasant sense of well-being that results. As to 
 the value of a plunge in icy salt water after the 
 sun-bath, that may be open to question, and 
 my friend remarked that I probably enjoyed 
 these baths in the same spirit as did the his- 
 torical character, who employed a boy to pinch 
 him in order that he might experience a com- 
 fortable sense of relief when the process was 
 over. However, in the language of the country, 
 chacun a son gout, and my friend preferred to 
 keep his clothes on, but I am inclined to think 
 that a taste for these two invigorating pro- 
 cedures adds a great deal to one's appreciation 
 of the Labrador spring, which is certainly 
 rugged, and not one of " ethereal mildness," 
 as the misleading quotation at the beginning 
 of this chapter might have led the gentle reader 
 to infer. 
 
 35 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 FROM SEVEN ISLANDS TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 
 
 " Backward and forward, along the shore 
 Of lorn and desolate Labrador 
 And found at last her way 
 To the Seven Islands Bay." 
 
 Whittier. 
 
 most maps the name Labrador is at- 
 tached only to the narrow strip under 
 the jurisdiction of Newfoundland on the Atlan- 
 tic coast, yet it belongs in reality to the entire 
 peninsula which begins at the Gulf of St. Law- 
 rence at the point where the 5oth parallel 
 strikes the coast. A line drawn from this point 
 to the southern extremity of Hudson Bay, or 
 rather of its offshoot, James Bay, separates 
 the great peninsula from the rest of Canada. 
 This westernmost point of the Labrador coast 
 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is about thirty 
 miles to the west of Seven Islands, and about 
 three hundred and fifty east of Quebec. 
 
 As we approached the Labrador coast, after 
 
 36 
 
INDIAN MOTHER AND TEN DAYS OLD INFANT. 
 
 THE TOWN OF SEVEN ISLANDS. 
 
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 
 
 an interesting sail down the mighty St. Law- 
 rence from Quebec, we could see in the clear 
 morning air the precipitous mountains of 
 Gasp6, sixty miles to the south, in places white 
 with snow and brilliantly illuminated by the 
 morning sun, but dark in the shadows of the 
 deep ravines. The whole southern coast of 
 Labrador is notable for its rivers which empty 
 their floods, swelled in the spring by the melting 
 snows, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The 
 first of these is the St. Marguerite River, which, 
 like nearly all these rivers, cuts through sand 
 bluffs and is partly blocked by a bar extending 
 part way across the mouth from the east. The 
 town of about a dozen houses is perched on 
 the western bank with a setting of dark spruce 
 forest. 
 
 The bay of Seven Islands is of great beauty 
 and forms a nearly circular basin some four 
 miles in diameter, and almost completely land- 
 locked. Seven mountainous islands, of which 
 the highest is Great Boule, block the entrance, 
 rising abruptly from the water to a height of 
 500 to 700 feet, granitic, rounded, glacier- 
 smoothed, yet well forested in places with dark 
 spruces. The birch trees, bare and leafless 
 
 37 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 when we steamed east along the coast, were in 
 full leaf on our return, and dotted the dark 
 forest with light green spots. 
 
 On the extreme left of the bay, as one faces 
 north, under some hills which match the islands 
 in height, was a clearing on the edge of the for- 
 est, occupied by the motley buildings of a whale 
 factory, a familiar sight to one who has been 
 on the eastern Labrador coast or in Newfound- 
 land. A little further in the bay was a wharf 
 piled with bales of white wood-pulp, which had 
 been brought by rail from Clark City lying 
 concealed in the forest some nine miles inland. 
 This " city " is a model one in many ways, 
 steam-heated and electric lighted, although its 
 effect on the forest is not pleasant to contem- 
 plate, yet I was told that proper forestry meth- 
 ods were employed, so that the land was not 
 left entirely destitute, and the continued 
 growth of the forest was assured. From the 
 wharf the bay sweeps around in a lovely even 
 curve of white sand beach, backed by the eter- 
 nal spruce forest, which stretches back to a 
 mountain barrier. This bay is of interest to 
 the ornithologist from the fact that thousands 
 of brant rest and feed on the eel-grass there 
 
 38 
 
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 
 
 every spring, preparatory to their flight over- 
 land of 500 miles across the broad isthmus to 
 Hudson Bay. Their migration does not stop 
 here, for they continue on to the far north, as 
 they are not known to nest south of the 83d 
 degree. This migration takes place between 
 the last week of May and the first two or three 
 weeks of June, and as we traversed the bay 
 going east on May 24th, and returned on June 
 22d, we missed the migration almost entirely, al- 
 though we obtained from several hunters and 
 Indian-traders a very satisfactory description 
 of it. We did see, however, one laggard brant 
 hurriedly flying north across the bay on June 
 22d, the last of the mighty throngs that had 
 preceded him. 
 
 Jacques Cartier visited this beautiful bay in 
 1539. One can imagine what his sensations 
 must have been as he sailed day after day up 
 this mighty gulf and river, entering as he 
 thought the direct waterway to the mysterious 
 East. Sir Humphrey Gilbert wrote in Hakluyt's 
 Voyages: " Jacques Cartier . . . heard say at 
 Hochelaga in Nova Francia how that there 
 was a great sea at Saguinay, whereof the end 
 was not knowen: which they presupposed to 
 
 39 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 be the passage to Cataia." Beyond Carder's 
 farthest west lay China, and the rapids above 
 Montreal bear the name La-Chine even to the 
 present day. 
 
 In an ancient " Discourse of divers Voyages " 
 it is said that " Many haue traualed to search 
 the coast of the lande of Labrador, as well to 
 thintente to knowe howe farre or whyther it 
 reachethe, as also whether there bee any passage 
 by sea throughe the same into the Sea of Sur 
 and the Islandes of Maluca, which are under the 
 Equinoctial line: thinkynge that the waye 
 thyther shulde greatly bee shortened by this 
 vyage." Sebastian Cabot had in truth " a great 
 flame of desyre " increased in his heart " to 
 attempt some notable thynge " when he heard 
 that " Don Christopher Colonus, Genuese, had 
 discovered the coastes of India, whereof was 
 great talke in all the courte of kynge Henry the 
 Seunth, who then reigned : in so much that all 
 men with great admiration affirmed it to bee 
 a thynge more diuine then humane, to sayle 
 by the Weste into the East where spices growe, 
 by a way that was never knowne before." 
 
 Cartier said that the Indians described some 
 marvellous fishes that lived in the Bay of Seven 
 
 40 
 
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 
 
 Islands, which " had the shape of horses, spend- 
 ing the night on land and the day in the sea." 
 Lescarbot, writing in 1609, says these fishes 
 were " hippopotami." These explorers were 
 not romancing, but doubtless referred to wal- 
 ruses, which in those days occurred even in this 
 southern region. 
 
 There are many interesting names connected 
 with the early history of Labrador. The Cabots, 
 John and his son Sebastian, take of course 
 first place in 1498, and the Portuguese, Caspar 
 Corte-Real is a close second in 1500. In later 
 days two names that are not usually connected 
 with Labrador appear. Louis Jolliet, the dis- 
 coverer of the Mississippi, was an explorer of 
 the Labrador coast in the latter part of the 
 i yth century, and he died there about 1700. 
 He married one of the daughters of Sieur Bissot 
 de la Riviere, and became involved in the end- 
 less disputes about the seignory of Mingan. 
 A still more unexpected name to stumble upon 
 in Labrador annals is that of the renowned cir- 
 cumnavigator, Captain Cook. In 1759, four 
 years after entering the navy, he was engaged 
 in making a chart of the St. Lawrence, and in 
 1764 he received a commission as marine sur- 
 
 41 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 veyor of Newfoundland and Labrador, in which 
 " arduous service he continued until the winter 
 of 1767." 
 
 To return to our own voyage : on the right 
 hand or easterly extremity of the Bay of Seven 
 Islands, in a narrow line between the white 
 beach in front and the dark forest behind, 
 stretches the town of the same name. The 
 small houses all looked thrifty, brightly painted 
 in white or gray with dark blue or red roofs, 
 dominated by a large priests' house and a church 
 with a tin-covered spire and a red roof. At the 
 left hand end of the town is the Indian village 
 with its smaller houses and church and numer- 
 ous tall flagstaffs, and beyond is the Hudson's 
 Bay Company's Post with H. B. C. in large 
 letters on the roof of the store. 
 
 In May the larger fishing boats were still for 
 the most part drawn up on the sand, but, as 
 soon as the steamer came to anchor a mile or so 
 from the shallow beach, a crowd of smaller 
 boats and canoes raced for her. In one of the 
 latter with an Indian was the Hudson's Bay 
 Company's factor, Dr. Ross. The steamer was 
 soon boarded by a picturesque and weather- 
 beaten crowd, and the usual excitement of the 
 
 42 
 
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 
 
 brief exchange of mail, news and merchandise 
 prevailed. It reminded me of similar occasions 
 on the eastern Labrador coast, but the French 
 language and a certain French love of dress 
 added a peculiar charm to this more southern 
 region. One man, who had given rather more 
 than the usual care to his apparel, appeared in 
 tall yellow boots and yellow riding gloves with 
 tassels, a high starched collar and a purple 
 necktie. His pointed waxed moustaches gave 
 the finishing Parisian touch to the picture. 
 
 Behind the town the forest stretches to the 
 range of low mountains which extend in a rocky 
 wall from east to west parallel with the coast. 
 This rocky barrier, the beginning of the high 
 land of the interior, stretches along the entire 
 southern coast that we visited from Seven 
 Islands to Natashquan. In places it recedes 
 many miles from the sea as at Natashquan, 
 where a coastal plain of thirty or forty miles 
 intervenes ; in other places it reaches the coast, 
 as at Magpie. At the Moisie River it is four- 
 teen miles from the sea, and at Mingan only 
 three miles away. At Seven Islands, although 
 the main range is several miles back of the head 
 of the bay, a rocky spur comes to the sea at the 
 
 43 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 western extremity of the bay, and forms the 
 various mountainous islands that block its 
 mouth. Everywhere the ridge stands up as an 
 impressive rocky barrier to the view from 600 
 to 1,000 feet in height, attaining in some places, 
 as at Mount St. John, a few hundred feet more 
 of altitude. This mountain is entered on the 
 charts as 1,476 feet in height. Low, the Cana- 
 dian geologist, states that several of the sum- 
 mits in this belt are more than 2,500 feet above 
 sea-level, and Hind found some of the mountain 
 ranges about the Moisie River to be 3,000 feet 
 high. 
 
 The top of the ridge, although nearly level, 
 presents rounded gaps, through which higher 
 mountains can be seen. To the west of the 
 Moisie River the mountains are wooded to their 
 summits, while to the east of this point they 
 stand up as barren rocky ridges, clothed here 
 and there only with patches of forest growth. 
 During the early part of our visit, snow was 
 plentiful in the ravines, but it grew less towards 
 the end of June. Everywhere this ridge in- 
 vited and mocked us, and we longed to reach 
 it, and explore its rocky fastnesses. Its barren 
 appearance like that of the rocky hills further 
 
 44 
 
THE BARRIER MOUNTAIN RIDGE BACK OF MINGAN SHOWING POISED BOULDER. 
 
 HUDSON S BAY POST OF MINGAN. MOUNTAIN RIDGE IN THE DISTANCE. 
 
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 
 
 north, and so characteristic of the eastern 
 Labrador coast, suggested arctic conditions, 
 and we had visions of arctic birds breeding 
 there, of horned larks and pipits and possibly 
 of ptarmigans. At Esquimaux Point we made 
 our longest trip inland, a laborious tussle with 
 the bog for five hours, yet we found ourselves 
 apparently no nearer the mountains than at 
 the start. According to Low the range is here 
 twenty miles from the shore. 
 
 At Mingan, however, the approach to the 
 high land is short and easy. A three mile paddle 
 up the swift but smooth waters of the Mingan 
 River brings one to the foot of the barrier, up 
 which an Indian portage path leads to Manitou 
 Lake, high up in the rocky wilderness. Not un- 
 til the last day of our stay at Mingan were we 
 able to take this trip, and it was well worth 
 taking, as it solved many questions we had 
 previously asked ourselves. The first discovery 
 we made was that there were traces of forest 
 growth even on the tops of the ridges, as 
 shown by stumps and trunks of considerable 
 size. All of these, although for the most part 
 smoothed and bleached by long exposure to 
 the weather, showed in their crevices and in- 
 
 45 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 tenors the black marks of fire. The ranges 
 beyond, still higher for no matter how high 
 we climbed on the elevated plateau there were 
 always summits beyond still higher showed 
 also gaunt trunks, and in places a considerable 
 growth of birch and aspen where there had 
 probably been a previous growth of spruce. 
 Here was an explanation for the absence 
 of arctic birds. The region was not arctic, al- 
 though from a distance it simulated it perfectly. 
 It had originally been clothed with a forest 
 in which forest birds had dwelt. Mr. J. A. 
 Wilson, the factor of the H. B. C. at Mingan, 
 told me that a great fire had swept over this 
 region forty years ago, starting hundreds of 
 miles inland at the Grand or Hamilton River; 
 it had reached the Gulf shore with a front over a 
 hundred miles broad. Hind gives the dates of 
 several great fires before this. Not only was 
 the forest destroyed, but the undergrowth of 
 bushes, the low herbs, and more important still, 
 the mosses and lichens as well as the peaty soil 
 were all licked up by the flames, exposing the 
 naked framework of bed-rock and boulder. 
 This soil destroyed represented the disintegrat- 
 ing work of water in its solid and liquid form, 
 
 46 
 
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 
 
 and of vegetation working through thousands 
 of years on the solid Laurentian rock that had 
 been left naked and scoured by the ice of the 
 last glacial period. The remains of this soil, the 
 precious product of so many years, no longer 
 protected by vegetation on the steep slopes, 
 was soon washed down into the valleys, and 
 these rocky hills are now almost as devoid of 
 soil as they were when the glaciers melted. 
 On the bare rock lichens are again growing 
 and disintegration is gradually creeping on 
 even there ; in the crevices the mosses and the 
 herbs and bushes are striving to gain a foot- 
 hold, and slowly a soil is being formed, which 
 after many, many years will be sufficient for the 
 re-growth of the Hudsonian forest of spruce 
 and balsam. Verily what a great destruction 
 a little fire kindleth! The mills of the gods 
 grind slowly indeed in this case ! 
 
 Here at a height of five or six hundred feet 
 glacial boulders abounded, many of them poised 
 on slopes of such an angle that a touch seemed 
 all that was needed to disturb their equilibrium 
 and send them crashing into the valley below. 
 The presence of these boulders shows that the 
 land here had never been submerged below the 
 
 47 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 sea since the departure of the ice-sheet from 
 the country. Elsewhere in the lowlands between 
 this rocky barrier and the sea, there was every- 
 where evidence of previous submersion, and 
 poised glacial erratics were absent. The rocks 
 on which these boulders lay were in some places 
 as smooth and polished as if the glaciers had 
 but just receded, and grooves and scratches 
 could easily be made out. 
 
 As in the plains the hollows are being gradu- 
 ally filled with vegetation, and the water ousted 
 or rather absorbed into the meshes. At a point 
 in these mountains where I sat a narrow tarn 
 of dark blue water lay at my feet, encroached 
 upon from the north by the sphagnum bog. 
 Beyond lay a bog in a broader, larger depres- 
 sion between the rocks, a bog still incomplete, 
 for here and there were small circular ponds. 
 On the other side a still larger bog was to be 
 seen covering entirely what was originally a 
 lake, and no spot of water remained. One must 
 not suppose that these regions were altogether 
 desolate. Far from it. Great patches of bril- 
 liant rhodora, varying in shade from light pink 
 to dark crimson or purple, illuminated the hill- 
 sides. Laurels and other members of the 
 
 48 
 
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 
 
 hardy heath family, dwarf cornels and bake- 
 apple flowers were everywhere in profusion. 
 To match these brilliant colours, a Wilson's 
 warbler in dress of lemon yellow with a shining 
 black cap sang from an alder thicket in the 
 shelter of some rocks, while a full plumaged 
 purple finch called my attention to himself 
 by a rapturous flight song, which he repeated 
 again and again as he fluttered upward, and 
 made me believe I had never heard a purple 
 finch sing so sweetly before. 
 
 While the view to the north was barred by a 
 succession of rounded mountain tops, stretching 
 up gradually towards the interior of the Labra- 
 dor peninsula which, according to Low, varies 
 from i, 600 to i, 800 feet in height, the view to 
 the south showed the great coastal plain with 
 its bogs and lakes and forests, its sandy shores 
 and winding rivers, its fringe of limestone 
 islands, forested and still bearing here and there 
 patches of pure white snow, the sparkling blue 
 sea, and in the distance the blue outline of 
 Anticosti. When this coast was submerged in 
 the distant past so that the sea washed the bases 
 of this granite barrier and entered into the 
 deep valleys, a shore line similar to that of the 
 
 49 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 present eastern coast must have been formed, 
 with its numerous outlying islands, its deep 
 fiords or "tickles," and its land-locked har- 
 bours. 
 
 Beyond Seven Islands stretches a long beach, 
 and, cutting through high sand and gravel 
 banks, the dark brown waters of the Moisie 
 River pour into the Gulf. Here the steamer 
 anchored two miles or more from the shore, 
 and we had a chance to study the little village 
 of a dozen red-roofed houses and a church 
 with our glasses during the slow process of 
 landing salmon casks on the beach. Moisie is 
 a great salmon station and the owners of the 
 mail steamer, the Holliday Brothers, catch in 
 nets great quantities of this fish every spring. 
 
 Again the beach stretched eastward, backed 
 by an elevated gravel plain, mostly spruce cov- 
 ered and edged with a pure white bank of snow. 
 The sea was like glass, and we were treated to 
 some near views of three whales. Two crossed 
 our bow and spouted close at hand, displaying 
 light gray backs; another swam lazily along 
 on our starboard side, showing a broad upper 
 jaw and long narrow dorsal fin. Off the Sag- 
 uenay we had seen numbers of white whales, 
 
 50 
 
THE BEST HUNTER OF THE TRIBE, JUST BACK FROM THE NORTHWEST RIVER. 
 
 A MONTAGNAIS COUPLE AT MINGAN. 
 
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 
 
 whose snowy forms contrasted well with the 
 dark water. Once we had seen a burgomaster 
 or glaucous gull of snowy whiteness fly above 
 one of these, as it came to the surface, both 
 white creatures looking perhaps for the same 
 prey. Later in the harbour of Mingan we had 
 watched some small whales sporting about, 
 followed by a flock of twenty or more common 
 terns, who screamed and darted down at the 
 water whenever a whale appeared. 
 
 The effect of the absence of wind on the 
 loons which dotted the surface of the water was 
 interesting. This bird is a powerful and swift 
 flyer when he once gets under way, but as his 
 wings are rather small in proportion to his 
 body, it is almost impossible for him to rise 
 above a flat surface without the aid of the wind 
 to oppose his aeroplanes. Out of twenty or 
 thirty loons disturbed by the steamer that 
 afternoon only two succeeded in rising from the 
 water. The others attempted to rise, and 
 struggled along with both wings and feet strik- 
 ing the water, going off from the steamer like 
 meteors at tangents, and leaving wakes like 
 boats. After a longer or shorter time, a 
 quarter of a .minute to a minute as a rule, al- 
 
 51 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 though one greatly terrified fellow kept up the 
 flopping for three and three quarters min- 
 utes by the watch, they would give up the 
 struggle and dive, and their subaqueous de- 
 parture was probably more rapid than their 
 amphibious one. They reminded me of children 
 who are able to walk fairly well, but, when terri- 
 fied, forget their acquired art and return to a 
 primitive scramble on all fours. Diving by 
 loons, like walking on the hind legs by man, 
 is an art of comparatively late development. 
 
 On this same 23d of May, as we steamed east 
 from Moisie, many flocks of old squaws or 
 long-tailed ducks flew about us, or, rising from 
 the water, mounted to a considerable height 
 and flew hither and thither as if they had not 
 yet made up their minds which way to go next. 
 In all there must have been over a thousand 
 of these beautiful ducks. The distance and 
 the noise of the steamer prevented our hearing 
 their voices, but they were doubtless as garru- 
 lous as usual, and from their talkativeness 
 they derive their names " old squaw." On 
 the eastern Labrador coast they are called 
 " hounds," a very appropriate name, for at 
 a distance, their voices sound like those of a 
 
 52 
 
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 
 
 pack of hounds in full cry. It is an interesting 
 and musical cry, and some of their expressions 
 may be represented by the syllables ong-hic, 
 and a-ond-a-lou. The Indians call these ducks 
 cock-a-wee, a name doubtless suggested by 
 some of their conversational calls. Now as we 
 did not see any more old squaws farther east, 
 and as there were none to be found here on our 
 return, we concluded, and this conclusion 
 was confirmed by the reports of hunters along 
 the coast, that the old squaws like the brant 
 migrate north over the isthmus of the Labrador 
 Peninsula. 
 
 The sun set that night in a cloudless sky, cold, 
 clear, golden yellow, and the glow in the north- 
 west was very slow in fading. The twilights 
 are long and beautiful in these regions. 
 
 Issuing from a dark ravine the Riviere 
 Blanche pours its white cataract of waters 
 almost directly into the sea, and in the distance 
 in the forest the mist arising from the great falls 
 of the Manitou River can be seen. The next 
 stop was made by the steamer at Grand or 
 Sandy River, a desolate rocky and sandy spot 
 where a score of unpainted houses and a small 
 gray church cling desperately to their mooring. 
 
 53 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 and appreciated him. Now one day there 
 passed along this road a stranger on the march 
 for the Hudson's Bay Post of Mingan, an elderly 
 man of timid disposition, and ignorant of the 
 customs of the Magpie ox, and indeed not 
 familiar with any horned cattle. 
 
 As he approached the bridge that crosses 
 the river near the cascade, he perceived the ox 
 grazing by the roadside, and quickened his 
 pace, for he did not relish such close proximity 
 to a great beast with long horns, and these 
 with such sharp points. Our friend the ox 
 stops grazing and steps out rather quickly 
 in order to say bon jour, so to speak, to the 
 traveller. He, poor man, starts to run to es- 
 cape what he believes to be an animal with 
 vicious intentions, and to his terror the beast 
 runs after him. Away they go, faster and 
 faster, down the hill towards the bridge. Just 
 before reaching this point, the road turns 
 sharply to the left at the river's brink. The 
 man, terrified as he is, has enough wits left to 
 take the turn successfully, and gains the bridge, 
 but the ox in the ardour of his desire for social 
 intercourse, and the slowness of his mind and 
 of his huge bulk, is unable to turn quickly 
 
 56 
 
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 
 
 enough, but crashes through the single rail 
 over the bank down down down 
 like a plongeur into the Magpie River. 
 
 The good man relieved of the pursuit of this 
 ravenous beast, but trembling like a leaf in 
 every limb, tells his beads and gives thanks to 
 the bon Dieu. Across the bridge he goes, but 
 he is suddenly struck stiff with horror at the re- 
 appearance of the ox, who, having arisen from 
 his plunge, like a veritable plongeur that he is, 
 has swum the river and clambered out on the 
 rocks of the opposite shore. 
 
 At this point in the story the trader, like a 
 good raconteur, suddenly ceased his tale with 
 arms wide spread and an expression of horror 
 in his face. None of us asked what happened 
 next, but he confidentially assured me on the 
 following day that the story was entirely and 
 exactly true. 
 
 The St. John River,, about a hundred miles 
 from Seven Islands, is the next stopping point, 
 and, while we anchored, boats with red sails 
 came out to greet us. The town is built on 
 the lowest of three sandy terraces on the right 
 bank of the great river, which is blocked at 
 the mouth by a sand-bar extending half way 
 
 57 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 across from the east, behind which are shel- 
 tered the fishing boats. Back of the little vil- 
 lage with its faded pink church was a great 
 cross on the bleak hillside, and in the distance, 
 about a dozen miles from the sea, Mount 
 St. John, looking as if it had split open and 
 fallen apart, stood up blue and snow flecked. 
 
 Again more beach and Long Point was 
 reached, a flat sandy place, a not inconsiderable 
 village abounding in fishing boats, but destitute 
 of a harbour. Some of the houses were of logs, 
 others clapboarded and neatly painted pea- 
 green, yellow or slate with red roofs. There 
 were two churches, a large new one evidently 
 to replace the old one. Behind stretched the 
 eternal forest of pointed firs and spruces, and 
 the grim barrier of rock, blue, gray and white, 
 brought up the rear. Men pushed out through 
 the surf to meet the steamer, while boys and 
 mongrel dogs waited on the beach. About 
 six miles off Long Point on one of the Perro- 
 quet islands is a lighthouse. 
 
 The Perroquets were formerly the nesting- 
 places of countless puffins, razor-billed auks 
 and gannets. Now these birds are all gone ex- 
 cept a few pairs of puffins and possibly a razor- 
 
 58 
 
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 
 
 billed auk or two. Lucas, who visited the 
 islands in 1887, found "a few Gannets in 
 spite of the incessant persecution of the Indians 
 who regularly make a clean sweep there." 
 The persecution continued and no gannets have 
 nested there for fifteen years. The birds have 
 a sentimental attachment for the spot, how- 
 ever, and visit it every year, and on June 2ist 
 we saw about thirty of these splendid birds fly- 
 ing near the island. 
 
 Of an entirely different character from the 
 forlorn little villages we had passed was the 
 trig settlement of Mingan, some six miles be- 
 yond Long Point, protected from the sea by 
 a wooded island which shelters a deep sound. 
 The dominating feature here was the Hudson's 
 Bay Company's Post neatly fenced and painted 
 as all these posts are. This was flanked on the 
 west by the Indian village, and on the east by 
 the substantial house of a salmon fisherman, 
 where we made our home during the latter part 
 of June for a week. 
 
 While the Seven Islands are granitic, and 
 rise steeply to rounded summits, the group of 
 Mingan Islands which begins off Long Point at 
 the Perroquets and extends for fifty miles to St. 
 
 59 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 Genevieve Island are flat-topped and com- 
 posed of light gray limestone, whose strata 
 are nearly horizontal but dip slightly to the 
 west and south. These islands vary in size 
 from those of an acre or two in extent like the 
 Perroquets, which rise but a few feet above the 
 water, to those of ten or fifteen miles in cir- 
 cumference, like Esquimaux Island, with cliffs 
 seventy-five or one hundred feet high. 
 
 All display the effect of the wear of the ocean 
 on the limestone cliffs, which are often hollowed 
 and turreted in a curious manner. In places 
 great caverns are formed by the waves; in 
 others rounded pillars are the predominant 
 features, and, owing to the varied resistance 
 of the strata, these pillars sometimes assume 
 strange shapes. If the harder layers are in the 
 middle, the pillars become worn above and be- 
 low, and a series of spinning-top shaped masses 
 line the shore. In other places, where the 
 denser layers are on top, the wear results in 
 toadstool forms which sometimes extend for 
 considerable distances along the water front. 
 In many ways these limestones reminded me 
 of the water-worn ice formation seen on the 
 eastern Labrador coast. 
 
 60 
 

 TOADSTOOL-SHAPED LIMESTONE ROCKS AT ESQUIMAUX ISLE. 
 
 INDIAN MOTHER AND CHILD AT MINGAN. 
 
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 
 
 In other places the immediate shore is a 
 flat shelf of limestone, smoothed, polished and 
 grooved by the glaciers of long ago. Many of 
 these grooves are shallow, rounded depres- 
 sions several yards wide, extending south into 
 the sea, and slightly sloping in that direction. 
 So smooth and uniform are these shelves, that 
 they would make perfect slips for whale fac- 
 tories ; all that is needed is a tackle on the land, 
 a whale in the water, and the thing is complete. 
 In some places, however, this fresh polished 
 surface is marred by numerous little hollows 
 which suggest selective solvent power of water 
 on some of the ingredients of the stone. In 
 other places the limestone is cracked and broken 
 off in square blocks suitable for house building, 
 or in smaller fragments making pebbly beaches. 
 
 As the islands are all alike in a way, a de- 
 scription of Esquimaux Island, which we fre- 
 quently visited from the village of Esquimaux 
 Point, will do for all. This island is separated 
 by a sound three quarters of a mile wide from 
 Esquimaux Point, and is of irregular outline 
 with numerous deep bays. On June 3d we had 
 a splendid opportunity to study the limestone 
 formations of the island, for we walked around 
 
 61 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 its entire coast line, and concluded that al- 
 though the island was only about three miles in 
 diameter, its periphery with all the sinuosities 
 measured at least fifteen miles. My friend be- 
 lieves the distance is much greater, and as we 
 walked without stopping the last four hours, 
 after we had already gone a considerable part 
 of the way, I am inclined to think he is right. 
 Granite rocks are soft in comparison with these 
 hard, marble-like limestones, and the effect 
 on my hob-nailed shoes was disastrous. It was 
 hard walking, and I was reminded of the saying, 
 " Hit hisn't the 'unting that 'urts the 'oss, 
 hit's the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 
 'igh way.'* 
 
 The cliffs on the eastern end of the island 
 are particularly fine, and in one of the inacces- 
 sible hollows an ancient nest of a raven was to 
 be seen, made up of a multitude of weather- 
 worn sticks piled up and woven together to a 
 mass the size of a clothes basket. Although the 
 ravens were said to breed there every year, we 
 saw no signs of them on our visits. It was evi- 
 dent, however, that a few black guillemots or 
 sea pigeons were nesting in the deep crevices 
 of these cliffs, for they often flew out on our 
 
 62 
 
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 
 
 approach and swam nervously about in the 
 water outside. Everywhere the water was 
 dotted with eider ducks. 
 
 The centre of the island consists of tangled 
 forests and sphagnum bogs, and differs in no 
 ways from the character of the mainland. On 
 the borders of the bog-pools, eiders and great 
 black-backed gulls were generally resting, their 
 striking black and white plumage contrasting 
 well with the vegetation. One could easily 
 spend a whole summer on this one island, and 
 not discover all its secrets. 
 
 63 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 AN ACADIAN VILLAGE 
 
 " Where a few villagers on bended knees 
 Find solace which a busy world disdains." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 TN the year 1605 a small party of French- 
 men with their wives and children came 
 from the western part of France, from Rochelle, 
 Santonge and Poiteau, to establish homes for 
 themselves in the new world. They settled 
 in what is now known as Nova Scotia, but 
 which came to be known in those days as Aca- 
 dia, and the French settlers, who thrived and 
 spread to New Brunswick, Cape Breton, Prince 
 Edward Island and the Magdalens, as Acadians. 
 Because these people are generally pictured 
 as a happy, pastoral race, one is apt to suppose 
 that the name Acadia is a corruption of Ar- 
 cadia, but this is not the case, for it is derived 
 from a word-ending of the Micmac Indian lan- 
 guage, meaning " the place of " or " region of," 
 and was used as a suffix by these Indians in 
 
 64 
 
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE 
 
 numerous names of places. The name has also 
 been derived from the Indian Aquoddie, mean- 
 ing the fish called a pollock. 
 
 The deportation of the Acadians from Nova 
 Scotia in 1755 is well known, and is familiar 
 to all from Longfellow's poem of Evangeline. 
 About a hundred years later, namely in 1857, 
 Ferman Boudrot, an Acadian from the Magda- 
 len Islands, sought to establish a home at Es- 
 quimaux Point on the southern Labrador coast, 
 and his example was so contagious that in 1861, 
 when Hind visited the place, there were already 
 forty Acadian families settled there. Now there 
 is a little village of some one hundred and 
 twenty houses, a substantial church with a 
 steeple and a priests' house. 
 
 That La Pointe aux Esquima uxde La Cote 
 du Nord is peopled by those of French descent is 
 obvious, for, as Thomas Hood used to say, even 
 the little children speak French such as it 
 is a patois which always suggested to me that 
 the language of Paris had been chewed and 
 partially swallowed. However, if my knowledge 
 of the French language had been greater, I 
 should doubtless have recognized traces of the 
 ancient dialects of the parts of France from 
 
 65 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 which the Acadians came, and the French lan- 
 guage of the sixteenth century. The little 
 children shrugged their shoulders delightfully, 
 and said s' paw as cleverly as their elders. Now 
 s'paw is merely a contraction of je ne sais pas, 
 and corresponds to " I dunno," or to the more 
 forcible " search me " used by our friend the 
 Yankee painter. Only the doctor and the store- 
 keeper as far as I could discover spoke English 
 in this place. 
 
 The continued use of the French tongue by a 
 people living under the English flag, extending 
 through so many generations, is interesting 
 and is found not only in out of the way places 
 like this little village, but also in a city of the 
 size of Quebec, where one sees the words " mai- 
 son a loue " placed above " house to let." The 
 French and English appear as difficult to mix as 
 oil and water. That a certain amount of as- 
 similation, however, has taken place is shown in 
 the use of the word potdtes instead of pomme 
 de terre, and in the incorporation of various 
 terms used in connection with navigation. For 
 example, " heave tranquilement " and " heave 
 le slack away," and " go ahead un pen " were 
 orders which arrested my attention on the 
 
 66 
 
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE 
 
 French steamer that plied along the coast. 
 The sign " Passagers are not admit on Foot- 
 bridge " showed a recognition of the existence 
 of English-speaking people, and a desire to 
 reconcile the two languages. 
 
 As the people of Esquimaux Point are all 
 fisher-folk, their houses are strung along the 
 shore so as to be in close touch with the pas- 
 tures of the sea from which the harvest is 
 gathered. Each family lived in a picturesque 
 little house, and, as they all were very similar 
 in appearance, one description will do for all. 
 They were of wood neatly painted in white or 
 gray with dark coloured roofs, their greatest 
 charm, aside from the little dormer windows, 
 being the graceful up-curve at the eaves, a 
 universal characteristic. The windows all in one 
 piece appeared to be permanently sealed, but 
 as June advanced the winter fastenings of 
 some were withdrawn, and they were opened 
 to the air. Plaster was not used in the con- 
 struction of these houses indeed only two 
 plastered houses did we find along this Labra- 
 dor coast but the generous wood-piles and 
 the stoves made to burn half a dozen long logs 
 at once gave an idea of the warmth to be 
 
 67 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 found in these thin-walled houses even in 
 mid -winter. 
 
 The firmly closed windows of these houses 
 reminded me of a former experience on the 
 eastern Labrador coast. My companion and I 
 occupied an 8 by 10 room, and, being peculiar, 
 felt it essential to have the window open. This 
 was not easily accomplished for the window, 
 either through lack of practice or because it 
 was not intended to be opened, was almost as 
 immovable as the rocks on which the house was 
 built. However, we at last managed to raise it 
 far enough to insert our arms in the crack, and 
 then, with a heave all together, we succeeded 
 in wedging it up about eighteen inches, 
 enough to let the fresh air blow in and the fog. 
 When we left, my friend remarked that they 
 would have some difficulty in closing that 
 window, and as we stopped at the same house 
 on our return from the north, I was amused 
 to see that his prophecy was correct, for there 
 were marks of blows on the window-frame 
 and an axe was in the corner. The axe stood 
 us in good stead in opening the window again. 
 Dr. Grenfell's hardest work is to teach the Lab- 
 radorians the value of fresh air inside their 
 
 68 
 
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE 
 
 houses. It is said that Newfoundland owes 
 the purity of its air to the fact that the in- 
 habitants keep their doors and windows tightly 
 closed, and it seems probable that Labrador 
 owes its wonderful atmosphere to the same 
 cause. 
 
 The church with its steeple and the priests' 
 house were of ample proportions, well painted 
 and prosperous looking, and timber was being 
 hauled for a new convent to replace the one 
 recently burned. In the convent the youth of 
 the region is instructed by the good sisters. Sev- 
 eral large crosses were placed at various points in 
 the village and a crucifix was in the little burial 
 ground. From the eastern extremity of the 
 town to the church, a distance of over a mile, 
 a long, narrow, well fenced lane stretched 
 parallel with the beach, and in this lane a few 
 cattle always wandered. One of these was 
 familiarly known to my friend and myself 
 as " Paul Potter's bull " from his resemblance 
 to that celebrated animal, but his familiarity 
 with the human race at close quarters had 
 rendered his disposition so amiable that we 
 soon lost our instinctive fear of him. The 
 object of the high fences on either side of the 
 
 69 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 narrow lane, fences sometimes consisting of 
 seven or eight bars, was to keep the cattle 
 from the little garden plots of which each 
 house boasted. 
 
 The first of June appeared to be the begin- 
 ning of the spring season with the agricultural- 
 ists of Esquimaux Point, for at this date the 
 tilling of the gardens began. With the aid of 
 broad bladed mattocks, deep furrows were made 
 in the dark peaty and sandy soil, the women 
 working side by side with the men, if haply 
 these latter were not engaged with their boats, 
 and the familiar pictures of French peasantry 
 were at once suggested. The soil is enriched 
 with dark, strong-smelling seaweed brought by 
 boats from the islands, and the seeds planted ; 
 turnips and cabbages, salads, radishes and pota- 
 toes were the chief crops. The rhubarb was just 
 beginning at this date to peep above the 
 ground. 
 
 Near the houses large black pots were often 
 hung for the purpose of washing clothes, and 
 a few open air ovens were to be seen, although 
 the modern stoves had almost entirely crowded 
 out these picturesque relics of the past. 
 
 The fourth of June seemed to be an es- 
 70 
 
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE 
 
 pecially busy day in this community ; agricul- 
 tural operations in the little house plots were 
 in full progress, and the farmers were generally 
 of the female gender, although boys as well as 
 girls assisted their mothers, who, in short, 
 woollen skirts, with bright handkerchiefs about 
 their necks or on their heads, were labouring 
 with mattocks to complete the work. The 
 men were busy painting their houses or boats, 
 which, drawn up on the beach out of the reach 
 of the storms, had weathered the long winter 
 under thatches of balsam boughs. New 
 rigging was being installed, new spars were 
 trimmed, nets and sails were spread out to 
 mend, and the whole place showed an air of 
 great bustle and activity. From time to time 
 the men would leave their own work to gather 
 in numbers to assist a neighbour to launch his 
 boat. 
 
 One very enterprising man had already been 
 out to fish, and had brought back the first 
 cod of the season, his small boat half filled 
 with them. A group of men surrounded the 
 boat on the beach to talk over the exciting 
 event after the long winter. It was all good 
 fun. Our friend the Yankee, and Yankees 
 
 71 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 are not slow in talking, said he never saw 
 people with so much to say to each other. If 
 they meet after two hours' absence, he said, they 
 jabber away as if they had not seen each other 
 for months. For example, he had watched six 
 men shingling the roof of the doctor's house, 
 and they were talking so hard that only semi- 
 occasionally was a nail driven. A couple of 
 Yankees, he was sure, could have done the 
 work in half the time but this perhaps was 
 merely spread-eagleism. 
 
 At all events, the people seemed to be enjoy- 
 ing themselves and to be looking forward with 
 pleasure to the short three or four months' 
 fishing season after the long winter. The 
 winter is the season of wood-cutting, of visiting 
 and of travelling along the icy pathway of the 
 coast on dog-sleds, while the summer is devoted 
 to fishing, and about 150 sails hail from Esqui- 
 maux Point. The summer is their season of 
 work, the winter they call play. 
 
 The boats, like the houses, are all of the same 
 type. Each boat was about thirty feet in 
 length, pointed at both ends and schooner- 
 rigged with two masts, although the jib and a 
 bowsprit were often lacking. Picturesque 
 
 72 
 
PREPARATIONS Ft>R THE FISHING SEASON, 
 
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE 
 
 boats they were, especially when the sails were 
 dyed a light pink or terra cotta red to preserve 
 them from the weather. About the middle of 
 June they all depart for the cod fishing banks 
 off Natashquan, and they return with their 
 cargoes of dried and salted fish about the 
 middle of July, to begin the deep-sea fishing 
 eight or ten miles off the home port, a season 
 that lasts two or three months more. Hand 
 lines only are used, which leave their impress 
 in deep grooves on the sides of the boats. Net 
 traps, so universal on the eastern coast of 
 Labrador, are not allowed here. 
 
 The scene in the village and on the beach 
 at this time was always interesting and pic- 
 turesque. One man in the hurry of his work 
 had pressed a small cow into service; she was 
 dragging a tiny cart loaded with ropes and nets 
 down to his boat on the beach, while he dra- 
 matically strode on ahead. 
 
 Religion takes a prominent place in the lives 
 of these people. The church bells ring out 
 many times a day to summon them to prayer, 
 and to prayer they go, not the women and 
 children merely as in some communities and 
 some faiths, but men too unless they are absent 
 
 73 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 at their duties. These bells, which were 
 11 jangled, out of tune and harsh," so inter- 
 fered at times with my observation of small 
 birds, whose notes I was trying to detect, that 
 I was often tempted to say " Silence that 
 dreadful bell: it frights the isle from her 
 propriety." 
 
 As the village is a village of fishermen, it is 
 appropriate that St. Peter should be its patron 
 saint, and that a large tin fish perforated with 
 the name of St. Pierre should swim as a weather- 
 vane on a mast in the church yard, and that 
 St. Peter's cock, very fat and of considerable 
 height, should act as a vane on a large cross at 
 the end of the town. Still more appropriate 
 is the painting over the altar in the church of 
 the miraculous draught of fishes, where the 
 boats are such as might be used at the present 
 day on this stormy coast, and the details of 
 pointed sterns and thole-pins have a familiar 
 look. The painting, a copy of one by Tissot, 
 is the work of a self-taught native, and is 
 remarkably well done in soft and harmonious 
 colours. Doubtless many a sturdy worshipper, 
 while his lips moved in prayer as he counted his 
 beads, has envied the success of this draught, 
 
 74 
 
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE 
 
 and has instinctively calculated its weight and 
 value, for one can easily count the fishes, - 
 they are very accurately done and are not 
 painted in the impressionist style. I was very 
 glad that it rained hard one Sunday morning, 
 so that I should not be tempted afield, and I 
 went to church for the principal service. As 
 the bells jangled from the steeple, mine host 
 led me up the front steps which were crowded 
 with men, who politely touched their hats 
 and made way for us as we entered the church. 
 Up the main aisle I meekly followed my guide, 
 feeling the penetrating gaze of all the congre- 
 gation fixed upon me. With a flourish I was 
 given the front pew and left to my meditations. 
 The vacant places in the pews must have been 
 soon filled, I imagined, as I did not at first dare 
 to look back of me, for I could hear the stamp- 
 ing of heavy boots as the crowd of men filed 
 into the church at the last moment. When I did 
 summon up courage to look around, I was 
 impressed with the black clothes of the wor- 
 shippers, the brilliant sweaters, dresses and 
 handkerchiefs of the workaday life had van- 
 ished, to be replaced in the women by black 
 caps and black dresses, and in the men by coats, 
 
 75 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 which, although often weather-beaten to a 
 lighter hue, were evidently intended to be 
 black. In the gallery near at hand was a row 
 of a dozen little girls, among them my friends 
 Lalouise and Yvonne, each with her black 
 eyes uninterruptedly fixed on the strangers 
 in the front pew. As I cast surreptitious 
 glances about the church from time to time, I 
 could not help noticing the similarity in type 
 between these sturdy Acadians and the peas- 
 antry of France with whose forms and faces 
 modern French art has made us so familiar. 
 
 The service seemed to be very sincere and 
 impressive, and the ten little boys, the acolytes, 
 whose brown faces and hands, and whose 
 shocks of brown hair contrasted well with their 
 white vestments, each did his part well. The 
 sermon was on La signe de la croix, which the 
 good father showed was everywhere, for even 
 the birds in the air as they fly, and the fishes in 
 the sea as they swim, make the sign of the 
 cross. I believe I shall always remember these 
 words which rang out through the church at 
 the end of almost every sentence. I could not 
 help thinking as I watched the two priests 
 with their strong faces, their black robes and 
 
 76 
 
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE 
 
 their brilliant vestments, of les robes noirs, 
 who accompanied the explorers of the seven- 
 teenth century in these parts, and of the ad- 
 miration and astonishment they caused among 
 the savages, for whose conversion from pagan- 
 ism they laboured so hard. Then the power 
 behind them was a mighty power in the king- 
 dom of France. Now they are outcasts, re- 
 pudiated in their own home, the French Re- 
 public, and are seeking liberty to practise their 
 religion here in the new world. 
 
 Of the present bishop of this region, Mon- 
 seigneur Gustave Blanche, it is said in a pam- 
 phlet describing his inauguration to office in 1905 
 that " the violent persecution of 1903 found 
 him at his post. Thrown on the street, like all 
 the clergy that an impious government could 
 no longer endure, he took, with a hundred of his 
 brethren, the road to Canada in the month of 
 August, 1903." J These were the Eudiste fathers, 
 a branch founded by Jean Eudes. Up to 1867 
 all the territory of Labrador was part of the 
 
 1 Translation from "Les Fetes du sacre de Mgr. Gus- 
 tave Blanche, eveque titulaire de Sicca, Vicarre, aposto- 
 lique du Golf St.-Laurent. Celebres a Chicotrtimi les 28 
 et 29 Octobre, 1905." Quebec, 1906. 
 
 77 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 diocese of Quebec, but after Rimouski was 
 erected into an Episcopal seat, all that im- 
 mense country of the north-east was detached 
 from Quebec and included in the new diocese, 
 which was called " La Prefecture apostolique 
 du Gulf St. -Laurent." This includes the north- 
 ern shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence from 
 Portneuf to Blanc-Sablon, and extends to the 
 north and east as far as Hudson and Ungava 
 Bay; it also includes the island of Anticosti. 
 Previous to 1903 it was difficult to find priests 
 for these isolated regions, but the difficulties 
 were, as the pamphlet says, removed by the 
 " providential banishment " of the Eudiste 
 fathers from France in that year and their 
 assumption of the work in this diocese. 
 
 The fathers certainly have most devoted 
 followers in this little village of Esquimaux 
 Point, and their piety was beautifully shown 
 at the celebration of the feast of Corpus Christ i, 
 which occurred on the last Sunday of our stay 
 at the place. The village was gaily decorated. 
 Long strings of bright flags and pennants 
 stretched from the church, and a long lane down 
 one side of the village brook, across a bridge up 
 the other side, and so on across another bridge 
 
 78 
 
THE PROCESSION AT THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI AT ESQUIMAUX POINT. 
 
 RAISING THE HOST AT THE " REPOSITORY." 
 
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE 
 
 to the church, had been lined with balsam fir 
 and spruce and birch saplings stuck in the sandy 
 soil and tied to fence posts. The day before, 
 on looking from the door of our house, I had 
 been startled by seeing islands of verdure ad- 
 vancing like Birnam wood across the sound. 
 The islands were boats so filled with trees that 
 the rowers were invisible. Flags and banners 
 of all shapes and colours waved gaily in the 
 wind along this lane and added to the joy and 
 beauty of the scene. 
 
 After an impressive vesper service in the 
 church, the whole congregation, which was in- 
 deed the entire community, sallied forth on the 
 prepared way. First came an acolyte, a sturdy, 
 handsome youth, bearing aloft in his strong 
 hands the cross, and attended by two smaller 
 boys bearing candles. All the acolytes were re- 
 splendent in scarlet cassocks and white lace 
 cottas. Then followed all the little children of 
 the village marshalled into some sort of order 
 by two anxious nuns, the boys in one line, the 
 girls in another. The image of the virgin, borne 
 on the shoulders of two women and attended 
 by little girls in the bridal dresses of their first 
 communion, came next. Behind followed the 
 
 79 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 women, young and old, many with babes in 
 arms. The central figure of the procession 
 was the priest dressed in gorgeous vestments 
 and bearing the host. He strode along under a 
 canopy supported by four sturdy fishermen, pre- 
 ceded by a banner, a company of men singers, 
 and four large candle-lanterns, raised aloft on 
 poles by four white-bearded men. Seven boys 
 in scarlet and white took their appointed 
 positions in the group. Behind the priest fol- 
 lowed the long throng of men, all bare-headed, 
 with whom I reverently joined. 
 
 Along the narrow, sandy lane we slowly 
 walked. Great solemnity, piety and adoration 
 of the sacred services were shown on every 
 face. There was no levity, no idle conversation ; 
 there were no lookers-on, all were participants. 
 The men sang, the priest intoned, the bells in 
 the steeple rang forth; a fox sparrow's flute- 
 like tones issued from the brook-side, clear and 
 sweet, and the holy vespers of the hermit thrush 
 came faintly from the distant forest. At last 
 we reached a turning in the lane where the 
 priest entered a repository, gayer still with 
 flags and bright pictures, images and paper 
 flowers, and with carpets placed about. Here, 
 
 80 
 
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE 
 
 after a short service, the host was raised and 
 the prostrate people blessed. Again the journey 
 was continued over a little bridge to another 
 repository, where the same service was re- 
 peated. Again the church bells jangled forth, 
 and the procession slowly wound its way to the 
 bridge by the church, and so on into the sacred 
 edifice. Here the services were completed 
 with much burning of incense and music. 
 
 To even think of photographing such a holy 
 procession seemed sacrilegious, but on inquiring 
 beforehand, I had learned that the good father 
 would consider it a privilege if some photographs 
 could be obtained of such an event, as cameras 
 were unknown in the village. So from time to 
 time my friend and I slipped from the ranks of 
 worshippers and endeavoured to fasten on the 
 photographic films some records, however im- 
 perfect, which might remotely suggest the 
 simple piety and beauty of the scene. 
 
 It was with regret that I left this little Aca- 
 dian village with its simple, peaceful life. One 
 of the first settlers who had brought his family 
 from the Magdalen Islands is reported to have 
 said in reply to a question by Abb 6 Ferland 
 as to his reasons for leaving long-settled regions 
 
 81 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 for the wilderness: " The plagues of Egypt 
 had fallen upon us. The first three came with 
 bad harvests, the seigneurs, and the traders; 
 the remaining four arrived with the gentlemen 
 of the law. The moment the lawyers set their 
 feet upon our island there was no longer any 
 hope left of maintaining ourselves there." For- 
 tunately his animadversions were not extended 
 to any other profession, so I was always treated 
 with the politeness that is characteristic of the 
 race. May the simple life long continue on these 
 shores! 
 
 82 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE COURTSHIPS OF SOME LABRADOR BIRDS 
 
 " Mille modi veneris." 
 
 Ovid. 
 
 A MONO the primitive races of mankind 
 * the male as a rule adorns himself more 
 than the female. He it is that rejoices more 
 in tattoo markings and paints, in the beauty 
 of the dressing of his hair and in adornments by 
 bright feathers. The female is modest by com- 
 parison and quiet in her savage apparel. Among 
 the lower animals this adornment in the male is, 
 with a few exceptions, the rule. The stag with 
 his great antlers is a striking object beside the 
 demure doe. Among the birds the contrast be- 
 tween the sexes is still more emphasized, and 
 the brilliantly coloured cock often appears to 
 belong to a different race from the quietly 
 dressed hen. The most striking contrasts are 
 to be seen among the famous birds of paradise 
 
 83 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 where the females are as dull coloured and in- 
 conspicuous as sparrows. 
 
 That all this is very different from the present 
 day fashion among civilized mankind is of 
 course a trite observation, but one wonders 
 whether the old instinct is not still present, for 
 men. when away from the restraints of con- 
 ventionality, love to adorn themselves with 
 striking raiment, as witness the cow-boy and the 
 tourist-sportsman, while it is an open question 
 whether men are not naturally more attracted 
 by the women quietly but carefully and taste- 
 fully dressed, than by the woman whose gar- 
 ments suggest the male bird of paradise. Most 
 women think otherwise, if we are to judge from 
 outward appearances, but I am inclined to think 
 they do not understand men, and are ignorant 
 of this deep, inherited taste. 
 
 One of the most marked examples of the 
 adornment of the male and of the quiet dress 
 of the female among birds is the eider, a common 
 and characteristic duck of this Labrador coast. 
 The male is indeed a striking bird; he is 
 a splendid duck of large proportions with a 
 creamy white upper breast and back. His 
 
 wings, tail, lower breast, belly and top of his 
 
 84 
 
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS 
 
 head to just below the eyes are jet black, while 
 the sides of his face and the back of his head are 
 washed with a most delicate and lovely shade 
 of green. Seen from the side, when he swims 
 on the water, the black crown, wings and tail 
 contrast beautifully with the general whiteness 
 of the rest of the plumage. From behind, the 
 black crown is seen to be carefully parted by a 
 white line in the centre, while the black wings 
 and tail, separated by a white division, make a 
 striking pattern. In flight, the black belly and 
 white breast are conspicuous, an arrangement 
 the reverse of the usual in bird colouration. 
 
 The female eider, on the other hand, effaces 
 herself in a garment of brown, so that she is 
 often invisible against the dark water, while 
 her mate shines forth conspicuously. One may 
 see at a distance a company of eiders all ap- 
 parently males, but on nearer approach the 
 company is found to contain a number of 
 females, which were at first invisible owing to 
 their plainer colouring. To their mates these 
 lady eiders must appear very charming, and 
 indeed to human eyes, the beauty of the plu- 
 mage of the females must be granted, for, when 
 seen at close range, they show most wonderful 
 
 85 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 pencillings of rich brown and black, and each 
 feather is a work of art. The dress is modesty 
 itself, but in richness of colouring and good 
 taste it cannot be excelled. In fact, as a con- 
 stant companion, I should prefer the richly 
 but modestly dressed duck to the gaudy drake, 
 but this, of course, is my inherited masculine 
 taste, a taste, however, that appears to be 
 shared by the drake. 
 
 That the drake is fond of the duck is evident 
 from the love-makings that go on in these cold 
 waters, and indeed the study of the courtships 
 of the eider was one of my greatest interests in 
 this Labrador spring. Everywhere we went 
 among the rocky islands that line the coast, 
 pairs and little bands of eiders abounded. We 
 found twenty nests on one island of a few 
 acres, and, on our walk around Esquimaux 
 Island, we must have seen at least 500 of these 
 beautiful birds. They were usually in pairs, 
 and, when flying, the female preceded, closely 
 followed by the male. This was certainly the 
 rule when the birds were flying about un- 
 aware of the presence of man, but; when 
 disturbed or frightened by his presence, I re- 
 gret to have to state that the male often 
 
 86 
 
NEST OF GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL. 
 
 NEST OF EIDER DUCK. 
 

COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS 
 
 flew first in his eagerness to get away from 
 danger. Sometimes several pairs, apparently 
 mated, would swim about together or rest on 
 the rocks close to the water, while at other 
 times one or two females would be surrounded 
 by six or eight males that were crowding about 
 them to win their favours. 
 
 The actual courtship of the eider, or moynak, 
 as it is universally known along this French- 
 Indian coast of Labrador, may be recognized 
 from afar by the love-note of the male, a note 
 that Cartwright likened to the cooing of the 
 stock-dove. To me it sounded like the syllables 
 aah-ou, or ah-ee-ou frequently repeated, and, 
 while low and pleasing in tone, its volume is so 
 great that it can be heard at a considerable dis- 
 tance over the water. On a calm day, when 
 there were many eiders about, the sound was al- 
 most constant. While the syllables aah-ou ex- 
 press very well the usual notes, there is much 
 variation in tone from a low and gentle pleading, 
 to a loud and confident assertion. In fact the 
 tones vary much as do those of the human voice, 
 and there is a very human quality in them, so 
 much so that when alone on some solitary isle, 
 I was not infrequently startled with the idea 
 
 87 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 that there were men near at hand. To all these 
 pleadings the female remains silent or occa- 
 sionally utters a low and simple ku ku ku. 
 
 But the wooer of the demure one does not 
 depend on his voice alone, he displays his 
 charms of dress to best advantage, and indulges 
 in well worn antics. It always seemed to me 
 a pity that the magnificent black lower parts 
 should disappear when the drake is swimming 
 on the water, and the bird evidently shares my 
 sentiments, for during courtship, he frequently 
 displays his black shield by rising up in front, so 
 that at times, in his eagerness, he almost stands 
 upon his tail. To further relieve his feelings, 
 he also throws back his head, and occasionally 
 flaps his wings. The movements of his head 
 and neck are an important part of the court- 
 ship, and although there is considerable varia- 
 tion in the order and extent of the performance, 
 a complete antic is somewhat as follows: the 
 head is drawn rigidly down, the bill resting 
 against the breast; the head is then raised up 
 until the bill points vertically upwards, and 
 at this time the bill may or may not be opened 
 to emit the love notes; after this the head is 
 jerked backwards a short distance still rigidly, 
 
 88 
 
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS 
 
 and then returned to its normal position. All 
 this the drake does swimming near the duck, 
 often facing her in his eagerness, while she 
 floats about indifferently, or at times shows her 
 interest and appreciation by facing him and 
 throwing up her head a little in a gentle imita- 
 tion of his force fulness. 1 
 
 Another duck whose courtship antics are 
 even more interesting than those of the eider is 
 the American golden-eye or whistler, the plan- 
 
 1 Abbott H. Thayer's statement in the Introduction to 
 Gerald H. Thayer's wonderfully interesting book on 
 " Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom " that 
 " This discovery that patterns and utmost contrasts of 
 colour (not to speak of appendages) on animals make 
 wholly for their ' obliteration,' is a fatal blow to the vari- 
 ous theories that these patterns exist mainly as nuptial 
 dress, warning colours, mimicry devices (t. e., mimicry of 
 one species by another), etc., since these are all attempts 
 to explain an entirely false conception that such patterns 
 make their wearers conspicuous** seems to me hard to 
 believe in the case of the male eider. I have watched this 
 bird on land, on water and in the air, on rocks, in bogs 
 and among bushes both green and brown, among icebergs 
 and ice floes, and, if I were a gyrfalcon intent on eider 
 flesh, I should not wish for a more conspicuous mark. I 
 can not help thinking that the brilliant orange-yellow legs 
 of the male golden-eye, the vivid blue lining of the mouth 
 of the double-crested cormorant and the wonderful black 
 belly-shield of the male eider are instances of the work- 
 ings of sexual selection. 
 
 89 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 geur of this coast. While the eider makes its 
 nest on the ground often concealed under the 
 grass and bushes, and lays from four to seven 
 large olive green eggs, which it smothers in its 
 own down, the whistler lays six or more pale 
 green eggs in a hollow tree. Of the former we 
 found many nests, of the latter only one, and 
 this was in a large hollow stub about twelve 
 feet from the ground on the edge of a high cliff 
 overlooking the sea near Esquimaux Point. In 
 this well chosen spot, which commanded exten- 
 sive views of the surrounding country and 
 ocean, a whistler had deposited fifteen eggs and 
 covered them thickly with down. 
 
 As the cliff was over a hundred feet high, the 
 process of transfer of the future brood from the 
 nest to the water would have been well worth 
 waiting to see, if only one had had the time. 
 Tree-nesting ducks have been observed to entice 
 the young from the hole, inducing them to drop 
 or flutter down into the grass or the water, 
 and it has been said that they sometimes fly 
 down carrying the young in the bill, or even 
 on the back. Careful observations of these last 
 named methods are, however, few or lacking, 
 and our regret at not being able to stay 
 
 90 
 
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS 
 
 and watch the process was therefore the 
 greater. 
 
 Although I did not observe the courtship 
 of the whistler in Labrador, and its extreme 
 shyness is probably the reason that so little 
 has been written on the subject, I have ob- 
 served it at Ipswich and Barnstable in Massa- 
 chusetts, and especially in the Charles River 
 Basin at Boston where, owing to the protection 
 afforded by the great city, the birds are unusu- 
 ally tame and unsuspicious. 
 
 The spring is of course the time when the 
 courtship actions are most indulged in, and they 
 begin in mild days in February and continue 
 until the departure of the birds for the north 
 early in April. In the autumn months, how- 
 ever, it is not uncommon to see the same per- 
 formance given both by the adults and young 
 males, although but incompletely carried out 
 in the latter case. 
 
 The courtship action varies considerably, 
 but a typical and complete one may be de- 
 scribed as follows: One or more males swim 
 restlessly back and forth and around a female. 
 The feathers of the cheeks and crest of the male 
 are so erected that the head looks large and 
 
 91 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 round, the neck correspondingly small, and as 
 he swims forward the head is thrust out in front 
 close to the water, occasionally dabbing at it. 
 Suddenly he springs forward elevating his 
 breast, and at the same time enters on the most 
 typical and essential part of the performance. 
 The neck is stretched up, and the bill, pointing 
 to the zenith, is opened to emit a harsh, rasping, 
 double note, zzee at, vibrating and searching in 
 character. The head is then quickly snapped 
 back until the occiput touches the rump, whence 
 it is brought forward again with a jerk to the 
 normal position. As the head is brought to 
 its place, the bird often springs forward, kicking 
 the water out behind, and displaying like a flash 
 of flame the orange coloured legs. This appears 
 to be the complete performance, and the female 
 although usually passive, sometimes responds 
 by protruding her head close to the water in 
 front, and then bringing it up so that it also 
 points to the zenith. Further than this, I 
 have not seen her go. It must be remembered 
 that even as late as March there are many young 
 males whose plumage resembles that of the 
 female, although the males are of larger size, yet 
 it is often difficult to distinguish them from the 
 
 92 
 
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS 
 
 female. That the female does take part to this 
 limited extent in the nuptial performance, I 
 have, however, convinced myself. Although 
 this performance is more striking than that of 
 the eider just related, the family resemblance 
 can be detected. 
 
 There are many variations of this curious 
 action. It may be curtailed, so that the thrust- 
 ing of the head up into the air alone re- 
 mains, or it may be limited to the upward 
 thrust of the head and the jerk to and from 
 the rump. When the birds are at such a dis- 
 tance that the note can not be heard, it is 
 impossible to say when it is emitted, but I 
 have observed birds close at hand go through 
 the performance silently. I have also seen 
 them thrust out the head in front in such a 
 way as apparently to scoop up the water and 
 then elevate the head, the bill pointing straight 
 up but closed as if they were drinking the water. 
 Sometimes the head is held on the rump for sev- 
 eral seconds before it is snapped into place. 
 
 A male after ardently performing the court- 
 ship actions near a female flew off with his 
 head low about a hundred yards. The female 
 swam rapidly after him with head stretched 
 
 93 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 close to the water, but lifted up vertically from 
 time to time in the courting manner, and she 
 soon joined her mate. 
 
 The display of the brilliant orange legs and 
 feet by the males is particularly interesting. 
 These members in the female are pale yellow 
 in colour, and it may be supposed that the males 
 have attained the more attractive orange as a 
 result of sexual selection. They certainly make 
 good use of this brilliant colour in the courtship 
 display, for the flash of the orange feet con- 
 trasting with the snowy flanks of the bird and 
 the dark water is extremely effective, and 
 noticeable even at a considerable distance. In 
 this connection it is interesting to note that the 
 legs and feet of both male and female Barrow's 
 golden-eye are alike pale yellow. I am not 
 familiar with the courtship of this bird, and as 
 far as I know it has never been described, 
 but I think it is reasonable to infer that the 
 display of the legs, as in the American golden- 
 eye, is not a part of the performance. As 
 the Barrow's golden-eye lacks the peculiar 
 localized swelling of the lower wind-pipe found 
 in the other species, one might suppose that 
 the musical part of the performance was also 
 
 94 
 
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS 
 
 lacking in their case. A study of the courtship 
 of this very similar yet very different bird is 
 much to be desired, and might throw consider- 
 able light on the relationships or evolution 
 of the two species. 
 
 There is no more unusual and bizarre sight 
 in the bird world than a dozen or more beautiful 
 whistler drakes crowding restlessly around a 
 few demure little females, and displaying these 
 antics of head, neck, and feet, while ever 
 and anon their curious love-song pierces the air. 
 
 At Esquimaux Point on June 2nd, as I was 
 standing on the rocks on the shore, I was startled 
 by the loud quack or croak characteristic of the 
 female black duck, and looking up I saw two 
 large black ducks, evidently males, in close 
 pursuit of a smaller female. They doubled and 
 twisted in a manner wonderful to see, as the 
 duck appeared to be straining every nerve to 
 elude the drakes. At last one of the drakes 
 gave up the pursuit and disappeared over the 
 low forest, whereupon the other drake and 
 duck sailed away together, as if it had all been 
 arranged beforehand, straight to a secluded 
 pool out of sight behind the rocks. The whole 
 affair was of short duration but very exciting 
 
 95 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 while it lasted, and very decisive; one of the 
 drakes had to be rejected. 
 
 Another water bird whose courtship I watched 
 on the Labrador coast was that curious indi- 
 vidual that compound of dignity and com- 
 icality the puffin. On this coast the bird 
 is universally known as the " perroquet," but 
 Sir Richard Bonnycastle in his "Newfound- 
 land in 1842 " justly says it " may be called 
 the sea-owl, from its extraordinary head and 
 wise look." Near Bald Island they delighted 
 to gather on the water in compact parties of 
 fifty or sixty individuals, that were constantly 
 moving in and out like a crowd at an afternoon 
 tea. Every now and then one would sit up on 
 the water and spread its wings, and once I 
 watched two fighting with flapping wings, and, 
 at another time, two struggling together for a 
 full minute with interlocked beaks. Occasion- 
 ally one puffin would face another, and throw 
 its head back with a quick jerk so that the bill 
 pointed vertically up, and then lower it again. 
 At one time I saw several birds do this, but as 
 the wind was strong, the water rough and the 
 distance considerable, my observations were 
 far from complete and satisfactory. Edmund 
 
 96 
 
ENTRANCE TO PUFFIN BURROW, BALD ISLAND. 
 
 WATER WORN LIMESTONE ROCKS AT BALD ISLAND. NESTING SHELVES FOR 
 RAZOR-BILLED \UKS. 
 
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS 
 
 Selous, 1 who has watched sea-birds in the 
 Shetlands, says of the puffin: " One of the birds, 
 standing so as directly to face the other, will 
 often raise and then again lower, the head, 
 some eight or nine times in succession, in a half 
 solemn manner, at the same time opening its 
 gaudy beak, sometimes to a considerable ex- 
 tent, yet all the time without uttering a sound." 
 Not only is the outside of the beak gaudy in 
 scarlet with white and blue lines, but the inside 
 with its brilliant yellow lining is superlatively 
 so, and is probably, as Selous suggests, de- 
 veloped as a result of sexual selection. The 
 inside of the mouth of the double crested cor- 
 morant is a vivid blue that of the European 
 shag described by Selous is curiously enough a 
 " bright gamboge yellow " while on opening 
 the mouth of a black guillemot I found it to be 
 scarlet, All these birds open wide the beak in 
 courtship, according to Selous. 
 
 Among many of our smaller birds it fre- 
 quently happens in the height of the spring 
 season and in the ecstasy of their passion that 
 they rise into the air with rapidly fluttering 
 
 ^he Bird Watcher in the Shetlands. London, 1905, 
 p. 246. 
 
 97 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 wings as they pour forth their love-song. This 
 happens regularly in the case of such birds as 
 the pipet, the horned-lark and the long-billed 
 marsh wren, and less regularly in the song 
 sparrow, oven bird, and Maryland yellow- 
 throat. 
 
 In these cases the slight music made by the 
 rapid and forcible fluttering of the wings is 
 wholly subordinate to the song. In the case 
 of the ruffed grouse on the other hand, the 
 music of the wings is everything, there is no 
 vocal music and no locomotion, for the bird 
 stands on a log and flutters its wings so rapidly 
 that a loud whirring or " drumming " sound is 
 made, by which the bird expresses, doubtless, 
 the same emotions as are expressed by the fox 
 sparrow with its wonderful song. 
 
 Mr. William Brewster, in his description of 
 a drumming grouse, says : " Suddenly he paused 
 and sitting down on his rump and tarsi, cross- 
 wise on the log, ... he stretched out his wings 
 stiffly at nearly right angles with the body. . , . 
 Now the wings were drawn slightly back, a 
 quick stroke given forward, at the air, and a 
 pulsating throb, entirely different from any 
 sound I have ever heard, struck my ear, pro- 
 
 98 
 
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS 
 
 ducing at such short range an almost painful 
 sensation: the wings were immediately re- 
 covered, and another stroke, a trifle quicker 
 than the first, was succeeded by another still 
 quicker, until the wings vibrated too fast to be 
 followed by the eye, producing the well-known 
 terminal roll of muffled thunder." 
 
 Although this performance is very different 
 from the fluttering flight of the singing bird, yet 
 there are two other Labrador birds that illus- 
 trate very well, it seems to me, the stages in its 
 evolution. One of these is the willow ptarmi- 
 gan, which, we were told came to the southern 
 coast in great numbers every five or six winters. 
 In this season the bird is snow-white with the 
 exception of a black tail, but in summer it is 
 brown and matches so well its surroundings that 
 it is almost impossible to see it on the ground. 
 In the love season it does not drum like its 
 cousin the ruffed grouse, neither does it sing, in 
 fact it tries to do both, but, as is often the case 
 under these circumstances, it falls between two 
 stools and does neither well. Mr. L. M. Turner 
 thus describes the nuptial performance of the 
 willow grouse, as he observed it in Labrador : 
 " In the spring these birds repair, as the snow 
 
 99 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 melts, to the lower grounds and prepare for the 
 nuptial season. About the loth of April they 
 may be heard croaking or barking on all sides. 
 A male selects a favourable tract of territory 
 for the location of the nest, and endeavours to 
 induce a female to resort to that place. He 
 usually selects the highest portion of the tract, 
 whence he launches into the air uttering a bark- 
 ing sound of nearly a dozen separate notes, 
 thence sails or flutters in a circle to alight at the 
 same place whence he started, or to alight on 
 another high place, from which he repeats 
 the act while flying to his former place. Imme- 
 diately on alighting, he utters a sound similar 
 to the Indian word chu-xwan (what is it?) and 
 repeats it several times, and in the course of 
 a few minutes again launches in the air." 
 
 The second stage in the evolution of the 
 drumming performance is illustrated by the 
 Canada grouse or spruce partridge, who has 
 developed the wing music to such an extent 
 that he has given up the vocal music. The 
 wing music, however, appears to be still some- 
 what dependent on flight and has not advanced 
 to the stage seen in the ruffed grouse, where the 
 wing music has become a performance in itself 
 
 100 
 
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS 
 
 and not incidental to flight. Although we saw 
 a number of spruce partridges in various places 
 on the coast, and although we watched and 
 listened eagerly for their nuptial performance, 
 we were unsuccessful. Bendire quotes the 
 following description of the act: " After strut- 
 ting back and forth for a few minutes, the male 
 flew straight up, as high as the surrounding 
 trees, about 14 feet; here he remained station- 
 ary an instant, and while on suspended wing 
 did the drumming with the wings, resembling 
 distant thunder, meanwhile dropping down 
 slowly to the spot from where he started, to 
 repeat the same thing over and over again." 
 He also quotes another description of the drum- 
 ming as follows: ' The Canada Grouse per- 
 forms its * drumming ' upon the trunk of a 
 standing tree of rather small size, preferably one 
 that is inclined from the perpendicular, and in 
 the following manner: Commencing near the 
 base of the tree selected, the bird flutters up- 
 ward with somewhat slow progress, but rapidly 
 beating wings, which produce the drumming 
 sound. Having thus ascended 15 or 20 feet 
 it glides quietly on wing to the ground and 
 repeats the manoeuvre." 
 101 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 Whether in the future ages the ptarmigan 
 will reach the stage of the spruce partridge, and 
 the latter that of the ruffed grouse, or whether 
 they will each branch out on original lines of 
 their own, time alone will determine, but in the 
 present age they represent very well different 
 stages in the evolution of the wonderful per- 
 formance of the ruffed grouse. 
 
 102 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE FROM 
 ESQUIMAUX POINT TO NATASHQUAN 
 
 " Through the Northern Gulf and the misty screen 
 Of the isles of Mingan and Madeleine." 
 
 Whittier. 
 
 Labrador Coast from the base of the 
 Peninsula to Cape Charles at the en- 
 trance of the Straits of Belle Isle is nearly 
 600 miles in length, and from Cape Charles to 
 Cape Chidley at the northern extremity of the 
 eastern coast the distance is about 700 miles. 
 With a few insignificant gaps this entire coast 
 line of over one thousand miles is so beset with 
 islands that it is possible to cruise in a small 
 boat in protected water-ways nearly the whole 
 distance. One must bide one's time, however, 
 in the gaps, for in the Gulf of St. Lawrence as 
 well as on the Atlantic Coast the seas are often 
 of the stormiest. 
 
 At Esquimaux Point, with the kind assist- 
 
 103 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 ance of the government physician, Dr. Trem- 
 blay, we were put in touch with two good men, 
 Mathias and Martial, owners of a fishing-boat, 
 with whom we proposed to cruise along the coast 
 to the eastward, stopping wherever we wished 
 and exploring all places of interest. The boat 
 was like all the fishing-boats of that shore, 
 staunch and seaworthy, thirty feet long and 
 pointed at the ends like a canoe or ancient 
 caravel. I suppose its model dated back to 
 European ones, although an evolution from the 
 Indian canoe at once struck my fancy. The 
 birch canoe of the Indians in this region has 
 been replaced by them with one of the same 
 model but covered with painted canvas. The 
 ease with which canvas can be obtained as com- 
 pared with birch bark of the proper size, its 
 lightness and strength and resistance to injury, 
 has endeared the canvas canoes to the Indian, 
 as well as to the white. The next step in the 
 evolution is the wooden canoe, a stauncher and 
 stronger boat and useful on the sea, one that 
 is propelled both by oars and paddles. From 
 that to the strong canoe-shaped rowing boats 
 used as tenders by the fishermen here seems 
 also a simple step, while the large sailing boat 
 
 104 
 
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE 
 
 with its pointed ends appears to be but an am- 
 plification of the tender. 
 
 Our boat or barge, as it was technically called, 
 was decked over and provided with a small 
 cock-pit astern, and an equally small cabin or 
 cuddy in the bow. It was schooner-rigged 
 with two masts, and, although the owners took 
 great pride in the white sails, and said the boat 
 could therefore sail the faster, I myself re- 
 gretted that the sails were not stained a pic- 
 turesque red, or pink, or brown, as were those 
 of many other barges in this region. Some of 
 these stains were wonderful bits of colour, 
 shading like a water-colour wash from dark 
 mahogany in one part of the sail, to a light 
 pinkish hue in another part. Others were more 
 uniform, but the effect was always pleasing 
 and suggestive of the colouring of the sails in 
 far less rugged and more smiling waters. 
 
 In the cuddy of our boat was a tiny iron 
 stove, which, however, took up so much of the 
 little room that there was but space for one 
 man to lie out at length on that side, and here 
 my friend made his bed. On the other transom 
 Mathias and Martial by overlapping end to end 
 were able to sleep, and sleep they did there 
 105 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 every night on the narrow shelf as quietly as 
 babies. A small triangle of floor was left be- 
 tween on which a child of six might have been 
 able to lie at length, and which Martial explained 
 by expressive pantomime made an excellent 
 bed if one sat up and leaned against the mast. 
 
 Guns, charts, food, cameras, clothing and 
 materials for preparing specimens took up all 
 available space not devoted to sleeping and 
 cooking, but by a little care in managing, we 
 were able to live very comfortably. It cer- 
 tainly simplifies life to have, as Martial ex- 
 pressed it, la salle a manger, la salle a fumer, la 
 chambre a coucher, le salon et la cuisine all to- 
 gether. One could put one's hand on every 
 thing from a central point. According to Dr. 
 Grenfell, there is a Labrador beatitude which 
 says: " Most blessed is the man who can get 
 along with least things." 
 
 Although there was plenty of air in these 
 somewhat confined quarters, and it was always 
 cold at night, I preferred all out of doors for 
 my chambre a coucher, and, provided with a 
 sleeping-bag and a bed of balsam boughs care- 
 fully thatched on the deck, I enjoyed this 
 chambre to my heart's content during the cruise. 
 
 106 
 
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE 
 
 A sleeping-bag is a delightful thing in a cold 
 climate; one dresses instead of undressing for 
 bed, and puts on all the clothes he has, if his 
 blanket is thin, while going to bed is very much 
 like crawling into a hole and pulling the hole 
 in afterwards, a thing most of us would like 
 to do metaphorically from time to time. 
 
 To sleep out under the stars in cool, pure air, 
 free from mosquitoes or flies of any sort, to 
 breathe in the fragrance of the balsam and the 
 sea, to be gently rocked by the subdued ocean 
 waves in protected harbours, to be lulled to 
 sleep by the lapping of the water against the 
 boat's sides, by the calls of the spotted sandpiper 
 and the evening hymn of the robin, to awake to 
 the song of the fox sparrow and the white- 
 throat on the shores, and the love-cooing of the 
 eider on the water, this was indeed good 
 and productive of heart's content. 
 
 Such a boat as this should needs have a 
 name, but the need apparently had not occurred 
 to the owners. I asked, therefore, the name of 
 one of the daughters of Mathias, who, in prep- 
 aration for the cruise, was diligently scrubbing 
 the cabin at the moorings off Esquimaux Point, 
 and at once with due solemnity christened the 
 107 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 boat " La Belle Marguerite," choosing the name 
 the more readily as one of my own also bore it. 
 
 From Esquimaux Point we set sail in "La 
 Belle Marguerite " with a good breeze on May 
 25th, skirting the shore on the left and the 
 islands on the right, successively passing Es- 
 quimaux Island, Sea Cow Island, Charles 
 Island and Hunting Island, all of the Mingan 
 group. At times it seemed more like sailing in 
 inland lakes than in the sea. The second of 
 these islands just mentioned takes its name, 
 not from the sea-cow or manatee, but from 
 the walrus which formerly extended its range 
 from the arctic regions along this Labrador 
 coast, but is now never seen there except in 
 the most northern portions of Labrador. 
 
 From Esquimaux Point a beach extends 
 eastward for twelve miles or more, backed by a 
 sand and clay cliff, brown and white and gray, 
 which increases in height towards the east- 
 wards, where it reaches an elevation of a hun- 
 dred and twenty-five feet. Here, as we after- 
 wards discovered, bank swallows had made 
 their nesting holes, and about sixty of these 
 little birds, uttering their rasping chirps, were 
 flying about. How they manage to dig their 
 
 108 
 
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE 
 
 deep holes in the hard bank with their feeble 
 claws and bill is always a mystery. It only 
 shows what persistence will do, and the same 
 lesson was taught by the great cross gullies, or 
 canyons, made in these cliffs by little rivulets, 
 that had been slowly cutting down to sea level, 
 or perhaps had always remained at sea level 
 as the cliffs were gradually elevated. 
 
 On the way we stopped to watch a single 
 northern phalarope, sitting like a miniature 
 swan in the water and pirouetting about in the 
 stormy waves. The bird proved to be a female. 
 It is interesting to remember that among the 
 phalaropes the females are larger and more 
 brightly coloured than the males, that they do 
 the courting, and that they leave to the down- 
 trodden husband the duties of incubation and 
 care of the young. They are suffragettes with 
 a vengeance. 
 
 At Faux Pas Island, a gravelly and grassy 
 bank of a few acres in extent, we landed and 
 feasted our eyes on our first saddle-back's or 
 great black-backed gull's nest. A conspicuous 
 object it was, over four feet across, made of 
 roots, grasses and seaweed, and built over a 
 derelict tree trunk. Inside it measured ten 
 109 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 inches in diameter, was lined with fine grasses 
 and contained three great eggs, olive-green in 
 colour, beautifully decorated with large brown 
 spots. After this we found many of these nests, 
 nearly every island contained several of 
 them. Some of the nests consisted only of 
 depressions in the turf surrounded by rings of 
 particularly green grass, nests that had prob- 
 ably been used for successive years. We were 
 rarely out of sight or hearing of these splendid 
 birds all the time we were in Labrador, even 
 when we were trudging over the inland bogs. 
 Splendid great birds they were indeed with their 
 snow-white heads, breasts and tails, and their 
 black backs and wings, and they recalled 
 slightly by their size, colouring and majestic 
 flight the bald eagle. Their calls were interest- 
 ing and very various. Some were suggestive 
 of human anger or grief or derision. At times 
 their voices appeared to threaten, at times to 
 deride, and again they appeared to be con- 
 versing in low tones to each other as they flew 
 overhead or sailed about gracefully in the 
 strong winds. Hoarse ha, ha, ha, high pitched 
 ki, ki, ki, harsh and croaking caw, caw, caw, 
 were some of their calls I noted, and sometimes 
 
 no 
 
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE 
 
 they cried car-ca-son most distinctly. That 
 evening we anchored behind Hunting Island 
 in the sheltered harbour of Betchewun, and 
 paid our respects to the solitary inhabitant. 
 Again we were off, and this time, taking ad- 
 vantage of the calm water in the early morning, 
 we laid our course for Seal Rock, which was a 
 barren lime-stone rock, one of the last of the 
 Mingan group. Not altogether barren this 
 rock proved to be, however, for, although only 
 about an acre in extent, it could be seen even 
 from a distance to be covered with black ob- 
 jects, which stretched up their necks in alarm 
 at our approach. Suddenly about 400 birds, 
 double-crested cormorants or shags as they 
 are also called, sprang into the air and flew 
 about over our heads, for the most part silent 
 but occasionally uttering hoarse croaks. Weird 
 birds they are, with long, snake-like necks and 
 great feet like bat's wings, with webs connect- 
 ing all their toes. Their black plumage, show- 
 ing a purple metallic sheen, is relieved by orange- 
 coloured patches of bare skin at the throat, 
 at the base of the bill and in front of the eye. 
 Their eyelids are black with a beading of blue 
 spots, while the eyes themselves are emerald- 
 111 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 green. The inside of the mouth is one of their 
 greatest charms, and, according to Selous, is 
 displayed during courtship; it is coloured a 
 vivid, theatrical blue, which contrasts in a 
 striking manner with the bare, orange throat. 
 How irresistible a cormorant beau must be 
 when he casts his jewelled eyes at his lady love, 
 and opens on her the blue grotto of his mouth! 
 To complete his charms, he is provided with 
 two little tufts of feathers, one either side of his 
 head, from which he gets his specific name. 
 
 From afar we scented their domiciles, for 
 an all pervading " ancient and a fish-like " smell 
 rose upon the air. We counted 204 nests, 
 basket-like structures six inches to a foot high 
 and a foot and a half across, made of sticks and 
 seaweed cunningly woven together and lined 
 with grasses. Some were decorated, I use 
 the word advisedly, with large gulls' feath- 
 ers, and many with branches of evergreen, 
 balsam, fir, spruce, juniper and laurel. Nearly 
 all contained eggs, chalky white and dirty, 
 from one to five in number. One needed a 
 strong stomach and a sure foot to walk about 
 these rocks slippery with " la farine des cormo- 
 rants," which painted rocks and nests alike a 
 
 112 
 
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE 
 
 dirty white colour. At last we finished our 
 work of counting, photographing, and note- 
 taking, and, as we departed, we were glad to 
 see the great black aeroplanes sail gracefully 
 down to their unsavoury abodes. 
 
 "As with his wings aslant, 
 Sails the fierce cormorant, 
 Seeking his rocky haunt, 
 With his prey laden," 
 
 Milton in "Paradise Lost" offers a tribute to 
 the uncanny nature of this bird, when he says 
 of Satan: 
 
 " Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life, 
 The middle tree and highest there that grew, 
 Sat like a cormorant." 
 
 After this we hoped to explore Bald Island, 
 the home of the puffins, but the wind proving 
 unfavourable we deferred this visit for a future 
 time, and again turned our prow eastward 
 and soon passed a solitary house on the rocky 
 shore, which was used in the lobster fishery. 
 Here, beginning the first week in June, lobsters 
 are caught and canned. Farther to the east- 
 ward near the mouth of the Corneille River is 
 another house used by salmon-fishers. At last 
 113 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 we came to anchor in a lovely land-locked 
 harbour among Les Isles des Corneilles, and 
 here we spent a most interesting twenty-four 
 hours, exploring the low, rounded granitic 
 islands and the main land with its salt marshes, 
 its bogs, its impenetrable forests and its rush- 
 ing turbid river. 
 
 Eiders were everywhere and their love notes 
 were constantly in our ears. They were to be 
 seen not only on the water, but also on the 
 rocks and among the stunted spruce bushes 
 of the islands where we frequently stumbled 
 on their nests, the large olive -green eggs con- 
 cealed in a mass of soft eider down. 
 
 A flock of twenty-eight geese were feeding 
 in a shallow pool between two islands, and, as 
 I watched them from a sheltered sunny nook 
 beside a great snowbank, I listened to the songs 
 of the melodious sparrow family as represented 
 by the white-crowned, white-throated, tree and 
 fox sparrows, all good singers. To the majority 
 of people the word sparrow calls up only the 
 English sparrow of our streets with its nerve- 
 racking chirps ! Little do they know how musi- 
 cal are most of this tribe and what a great tribe 
 it is. 
 
 114 
 
MATHIAS AND MARTIAL AND THE BEAVER. 
 
 THE BEAVER" SKIN. 
 
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE 
 
 It was here in the little harbour of the Crow 
 that Mathias, he of the brass bracelet to keep 
 off rheumatism and salt-water sores, cried out 
 " Les Sauvages! " and here I made my first 
 visit on these interesting people. 
 
 Again we bore away, and this time for Pi- 
 ashte-bai Bay, at whose mouth we visited a soli- 
 tary Indian wigwam, and spent part of two 
 days with a fur-trader, visiting his house, as- 
 cending the river to the falls and gathering 
 much interesting information. 
 
 While we were on the shore we met one of the 
 inhabitants returning from his traps with a 
 large beaver on his back, and, on our return to 
 " La Belle," we found that the men had shot 
 another as it was swimming across the harbour. 
 They are interesting beasts, these beaver, from 
 many points of view, historical and otherwise, 
 and that night I learned some new facts. With 
 great care Mathias prepared the tit-bit, the 
 tail, for supper. First he roasted it slightly over 
 the embers, so that the black, scaly skin could 
 be easily scraped off; then with an axe he cut 
 up the white meat into little cubes, and boiled it 
 in a sauce-pan. It tasted something like pigs' 
 feet, and although good eating, was not as 
 115 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 pleasant to my palate as beaver steaks, which 
 were delicious and suggested goose. As we 
 were eating I suddenly remembered it was 
 Friday, and feared our good friends were com- 
 mitting a grievous sin. Not so, however, for, 
 as Mathias explained, beaver is poisson,as is also 
 the moynak or eider and other sea ducks, but 
 one may not eat of river ducks on Friday, for 
 they are viands. There are more ways than 
 one of whipping the devil around the stump. 
 Of eggs, however, there was no question, and 
 my companion was an ardent collector of egg 
 shells. With a drill he carefully bored a hole 
 in one side of the egg into which a small blow- 
 pipe was inserted; now this blow-pipe was 
 connected with a rubber bulb, which, on com- 
 pression by the hand, forced out through the 
 same hole the contents of the egg. These con- 
 tents were not wasted, far from it, but 
 were received into the frying-pan, and we had, 
 with a clear conscience and as the result of 
 scientific activity on our parts, omelets of 
 eiders', great-black-backed gulls', puffins' and 
 even cormorants' eggs. The last named we let 
 Mathias prepare after a Labrador receipt : flour 
 in generous proportion was mixed with the eggs, 
 
 116 
 
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE 
 
 together with salt and butter, the whole form- 
 ing a stiff pancake which was browned on one 
 side, turned over and browned on the other, 
 and then cut into four pie-shaped pieces that 
 could stand alone. It tasted good, although 
 a trifle fishy, but it had great staying qualities, 
 in fact, as I noted in my journal, it was " fine 
 and filling." 
 
 That afternoon we did not sail far, for even 
 in Labrador it is calm sometimes, and we cast 
 anchor in the Grand Bay of Piashte-bai, 
 the nomenclature which I follow with great care 
 is at times difficult. Here we were surrounded 
 by granitic glacier-smoothed islands, cut by 
 dark basaltic dykes, supporting but little vege- 
 tation and that of an arctic type, a bleak 
 coast. On one of these islands we found the 
 remains of a white man's camp as shown by a 
 circle of empty tins, and discovered the cause 
 of his presence in some blasting operations 
 which had been conducted for the purpose of 
 obtaining a small quantity and poor quality 
 of mica. The quest for " wealth in the rocks " 
 proves often a disastrous will-o'-the-wisp for 
 mankind. 
 
 We visited another cormorant colony the 
 117 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 next day, undeterred by our first experience, 
 and found seventy-three nests on the bare 
 rock, after which we bore away for the high 
 headland of Quatachoo, which stood up like a 
 sentinel among the multitude of low, prostrate 
 islands where we took refuge from the stormy 
 sea in a deep and quiet anchorage. The water 
 was tinged the colour of tea from the river 
 which poured with the roar of distant rapids 
 from the mainland to the north. From a rocky 
 hill, which rose about a hundred and twenty- 
 five feet nearly sheer from the ocean, I could see 
 between the scuds of fog that drifted landwards 
 the low island-studded coast, barren for the 
 most part, save for the trees in the gullies. 
 The red and gray granitic rocks were relieved 
 by great veins of white quartz, and cleft by 
 dark basalt, while every deep hollow contained 
 a snowdrift of unsullied whiteness, and all 
 the seaward shores were surf- fringed. 
 
 "The Night-winds sigh, the breakers roar, 
 And shrieks the wild sea-mew." 
 
 It was cold, it was barren, it was lonely, for there 
 
 was no sign of man to be seen in any direction, 
 
 yet it was a scene thoroughly to be enjoyed. 
 
 118 
 
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE 
 
 There is a charm about the barren places of the 
 earth not easily described in words, a charm 
 that the artist attempts to transfer to canvas, 
 and one that appeals often times with especial 
 force to the naturalist. 
 
 After an excellent dinner of broiled duck 
 in the salle a manger of "La Belle," for I must 
 not have the gentle reader imagine that I lived 
 only on air and view and philosophy, we turned 
 our prow again to the eastward, and sought 
 through the stormy sea for the place the 
 canards des roches, the curious many coloured 
 harlequin ducks, were said to frequent, a place 
 known in these parts as Watcheeshoo. On 
 peering over some rocks here we saw three of 
 these curious birds and watched them swim 
 and fly away. 
 
 While I was toasting my toes on the little 
 10 x 1 6 inch stove at the entrance of the cuddy 
 that night, listening to the cooing of the eiders, 
 the gentle chiding laughter of the saddle-backs, 
 and to the roar of the surf on the outer side of 
 the island, while within was calm and peace- 
 ful, watching the sun go down in a golden 
 glory, and thinking of our luck in seeing the 
 harlequins, a canoe silently glided alongside. 
 119 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 Kneeling in the bottom at the paddles were two 
 Indians, one an old man with a scanty beard, 
 the other a beardless youth. They came on 
 board and shook hands, exchanged a few unin- 
 telligible words with our men and departed as 
 silently as they came. 
 
 The Indians that I saw in canoes on the coast 
 always kneeled and did not sit up on the 
 thwarts as their white brothers often do. At 
 Mingan one Indian refused to take me in his 
 canoe unless I sat in the bottom and did not 
 paddle. To escape that ignominy I kneeled at 
 the bow paddle in the canoe of another Indian, 
 but when I could bear the position no longer, 
 and my knees were almost paralyzed, I made 
 bold to raise myself to a sitting position on a 
 basket and continued to paddle. My friend, 
 who was sitting facing the Indian in the stern, 
 said that his countenance expressed the utmost 
 anxiety at this move on my part, and that drops 
 of perspiration stood out on his brow. And I do 
 not blame him, for he did not know, and I could 
 not tell him whether I had ever been in a canoe 
 before or not, and he probably was unable to 
 swim. 
 
 That evening Martial told us of his trip on 
 120 
 
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE 
 
 the ice a hundred and fifty miles up the Romaine 
 River one winter, hunting and dragging stores 
 on a sled for men who were measuring and 
 charting that great stream. His clever pan- 
 tomime made his patois more intelligible, and 
 every now and then he would favour us with 
 snatches of song. He was a merry fellow. The 
 songs of Mathias were slower and more solemn, 
 and I often wondered whether they were not 
 some of the old songs brought by the Acadians 
 from France in 1605. His family name is 
 among the list of those expelled from the basin 
 of Minas in 1755. 
 
 Sunday, May 3oth, was a cloudy, rainy day 
 with a cold northeast wind, and, under reefed 
 sails, we threaded the narrow passages among 
 the islands in a manner that showed a wonderful 
 knowledge of this region by our men. The charts 
 we brought with us they never looked at, and 
 indeed these charts showed but a small part of 
 these islands and of the intricacies of the coast. 
 Up Yellow Bay, a long, narrow land-locked pas- 
 sage, we sailed with apparently no chance of 
 escape, but suddenly we opened up what on 
 the eastern coast would be called a " tickle," 
 and through this we glided to the open sea. 
 
 121 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 As we passed Pashasheeboo Bay, a name 
 which Mathias delighted to roll on his tongue, we 
 saw a solitary house, a lobster fisherman's. 
 For a long distance we sailed among rocky 
 islands, and we passed a lovely protected har- 
 bour, forest skirted, which Mathias called le 
 hdvre des sauvages, for, he said, fourteen or 
 fifteen families of Indians camped there every 
 summer, and I admired their taste. 
 
 Soon the scene changed, and we skirted at a 
 safe distance a ten mile, surf-lined beach, backed 
 by cliffs and a dark spruce forest. The Na- 
 besippi River flowed out in the middle of this 
 beach, and, at the eastern end, the Agwanus 
 River discharged. Here was a big church, a 
 bigger trading-house and a dozen or two small 
 houses of the habitants, all fishermen and trap- 
 pers. Hundreds of terns or sea swallows, as 
 they are called, graceful creatures, flew about 
 us screaming, and it was evident that they 
 were nesting on the barren islands. As the 
 breakers appeared to form a continuous white 
 line across the entrance to the harbour where 
 a few fishing boats were riding at anchor, we 
 concluded that the open sea was much pleas- 
 anter, and we pushed on in our staunch boat. 
 
 122 
 
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE 
 
 Two or three more miles of sand beach and then 
 rocky islands uncounted appeared as we sailed by 
 Washtawooka Bay. The land was everywhere 
 terraced and flat topped, showing stages of 
 elevation above the sea, the edges of the terraces 
 marked with lines of snow which made good 
 settings to the fringes of spruces. It was a glori- 
 ous day's sail of over fifty miles in the storm and 
 wet, but our boat was staunch, our crew were 
 skilful, our oilskins tight, and the air and the 
 water contained many objects dear to the or- 
 nithologist. 
 
 We reached Natashquan, literally " the place 
 where the seals haul out," at the end of the after- 
 noon, and cast anchor in the shallow, sandy 
 harbour at the mouth of the little Natashquan, 
 after running on to a sandbar. Mathias, while 
 rowing us ashore in the canoe, after failing to 
 make us understand in his native tongue, as- 
 tonished us by an attempt in English. " Sirs," 
 he said, for he afterwards told us he had learned 
 English at Clark City, " the tide she rise low, 
 maintenant." 
 
 We were hospitably received by Martial's 
 sister, who asked us, as I thought, whether 
 we wished crabs, for breakfast next day. I 
 
 123 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 eagerly acquiesced, having visions of broiled 
 crabs, but there appeared on the table large 
 pan-cakes much soaked in fat, crepes, a favour- 
 ite dish along the coast, and one we found 
 stood us in good stead on an all day tramp. 
 There was, however, no crape, as my friend 
 suggested there might be, on the door next day. 
 
 Natashquan is a rambling village on both 
 sides of the mouth of the Little Natashquan 
 River. On the right bank was a small group 
 of houses including the trading post, which 
 went under the name of the Labrador Fur 
 Company, and as the wife of the trader had 
 just entertained eight Indians at dinner she 
 was much wearied, yet on learning that we 
 came from the States and talked English, - 
 she herself came from Chicago, she and her 
 husband made us at home, and gave us with 
 the aid of a piano and her pleasant voice a 
 musical evening. 
 
 Another building on the right bank was the 
 house of the telegraph operator, he of the 
 wig and a face devoid of eyebrows, lashes and 
 beard. The trader told us that some years 
 ago this man and another strongly opposed the 
 appointment of a certain schoolmaster by the 
 
 124 
 
NEST AND EGGS OF DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT. 
 
 A CORNER OF A CORMORANT ROOKERY AT SEAL ROCK. 
 
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE 
 
 priest, and in the heat of the argument, they 
 exclaimed " may we lose every hair of our 
 bodies if this vile one is appointed." The priest 
 had his way, and they both began to lose their 
 hair. One in fright and repentance made his 
 peace with the priest, and all was well. Not 
 so the stubborn telegraph operator, and to 
 this day he is as devoid of hair as is an apple. 
 
 On the eastern side of the river, which we 
 crossed in one of the numerous small boats left 
 on its sandy shores, were a few more houses and 
 a large church and a priests' house. From the 
 latter a straight path led along the top of a 
 ridge, an old raised sea beach, bordered 
 on either side with thickly growing white 
 spruces. Beyond lay the beach four miles 
 long, backed by shifting sand dunes, and at 
 the end of the beach was the Great Natash- 
 quan River with its little Indian village. 
 
 It was on this beach that we saw a pair of 
 piping plovers, with their sweet mournful 
 calls, a bird that has not been recorded for 
 Labrador before, and a splendid Caspian tern 
 flew by so close that we could surely identify 
 it. Audubon had found this bird here in 1833 
 and Frazer in 1884 had discovered a breeding 
 125 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 colony. We were glad to find that the bird 
 still survived. 
 
 Near the town the spruces and firs had been 
 so cut away that the sand was sweeping back 
 and had already overwhelmed one house. A 
 large cross, evidently erected to stop the 
 progress of the shifting dunes, stood in the 
 midst of this waste. Heretic that I was, I 
 could not help thinking it would have been 
 wiser to plant beach-grass and trees. 
 
 As we had been told at Quebec that the mail 
 boat reaching Natashquan about the first of 
 June would continue on to Harrington, we 
 climbed aboard the " Aranmore " as she lay 
 at anchor at a long and safe distance off Natash- 
 quan, fully expecting to go on further east. 
 What was our surprise when our old friend 
 Captain Hearn turned her prow westward 
 again, and my hopes of glimpses of the bird 
 colonies of Cape Whittle and of Dr. Grenfell's 
 hospital at Harrington were dashed. However, 
 we were glad to return to Esquimaux Point, 
 and I knew by previous experience that a 
 Labrador steamer, like life itself, was very 
 uncertain. 
 
 As unfavourable winds had prevented us 
 
 126 
 
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE 
 
 from reaching Bald Island near Betchewun 
 on this cruise, we visited it on the 8th and Qth 
 of June by sailing from Esquimaux Point in 
 " La Belle Marguerite." The island is of about 
 a dozen acres in extent, and presents to the 
 sea turreted and arched limestone cliffs from 
 fifteen to thirty feet high. Its flat top was 
 covered with deep black soil, on which a forest 
 of giant stalks of cow parsnip were still stand- 
 ing from the previous summer. In this loose 
 soil and under the rocks were numerous bur- 
 rows of puffins, or perroquets, as they are uni- 
 versally called on the Labrador coast. Each 
 burrow was from two to three feet long, and, 
 at the end, the owner was usually sitting on her 
 single dirty white egg in a nest of straw. 
 
 Extraordinary birds are these puffins, about 
 150 of whom were to be constantly seen flying 
 and swimming about the island. Their large 
 parrot-like red bill, their pale gray spectacled 
 face and black collar, and their short, chunky 
 build made them appear grotesque on the water 
 or in flight, and even more grotesque when they 
 stood bolt upright on the rocks, and comically 
 anxious when they walked about near us. Their 
 bills in the breeding season, when examined 
 127 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 carefully, are seen to be scarlet, with a steel 
 blue base on the lower mandible, a white line 
 on the upper and an orange patch at the com- 
 misure. There is a curious blue horny spur 
 above the eye, and the edges of the eyelid are 
 vermilion, while the inside of the mouth is a 
 deep gamboge yellow, and the feet are orange 
 red. 
 
 Another bird that later in the season laid its 
 eggs on this island, one can not say nested, for 
 the egg is deposited on the bare rock, was the 
 razor-billed auk, and we saw a little company of 
 seventeen of these birds flying about the island, 
 all that was left of the throngs that bred in that 
 region in Audubon's day. Here the bill is jet 
 black ornamented with a curved white line, 
 and wonderfully set off, when the bird opens 
 its mouth, by the brilliant yellow lining of that 
 cavity. The birds were swimming about in 
 little bands with their tails cocked up, and were 
 evidently discussing matrimonial plans. 
 
 One does not expect to pick up the eggs of 
 wood birds at sea, but on our return from Bald 
 Island we were obliged to anchor behind Little 
 St. Charles Island, where a fishing boat from 
 Esquimaux Point had also taken refuge from 
 123 
 
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE 
 
 the high wind. An exchange of shouted civil- 
 ities between the two boats resulted, in which 
 it appeared, for our fame had spread, 
 that some eggs of the spruce partridge, greatly 
 desired by my companion, had just been 
 found. In fact the fisherman while ashore 
 for wood had put his foot into the nest, and 
 broken four of the twelve eggs. However, 
 the remainder, beautifully speckled with brown, 
 were gratefully received. 
 
 I have now finished a cursory survey of the 
 Labrador coast from its western point to Na- 
 tashquan, a distance of 250 miles. In another 
 book I attempted to describe the 600 miles of 
 coast between Bradore and Nain. The hiatus 
 of about 240 miles between Natashquan and 
 Bradore was explored and described by Audu- 
 bon in 1833, and I hope some day to follow in his 
 steps; in the meantime it is a satisfaction to 
 feel that the gap in one's narrative is so well 
 filled. 
 
 129 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS 
 
 " In such like Toils and Sports, the Year goes round, 
 And for each day, some Work or Pleasure's found." 
 
 Cartwright. 
 
 TN the latter part of the eighteenth cen- 
 * tury an adventurous Englishman spent 
 sixteen years on the bleak eastern Labrador 
 coast engaged in fishing, trapping and hunting, 
 and in trading with the aborigines. Captain 
 Cartwright 's Journal, originally published in 
 1793, shows the evident joy of the man in his 
 rugged life on those shores, and his appreciation 
 of its attractions, notwithstanding the severity 
 of its climate and its loneliness. Although, as 
 a younger son in an old family of depleted 
 fortunes, his ostensible object was the accumula- 
 tion of money, it is evident that the spirit of 
 sport and adventure, and not the desire to 
 amass a fortune, was his guiding star. Origi- 
 nally possessed of independence of character, 
 
 130 
 
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS 
 
 his life in Labrador further developed it, as 
 such a life naturally would, and instead of 
 leading the trivial humdrum life of the average 
 sporting squire, which would probably have 
 been his lot if he had settled down at home, he 
 became a careful observer and an accurate 
 recorder of animal and vegetable nature, a 
 skilful leader of men, and just in all his relations 
 with them, notably so in his relations with the 
 savages, both Eskimo and Indian, an in- 
 teresting figure indeed in the early days of the 
 Labrador coast. 
 
 This same joy of living in remote parts, away 
 from the conventional life of the cities, this 
 same love of a wild life with all its hardships 
 and struggles, is still an attribute of humanity 
 not difficult to find. The conventional city 
 life has been of very recent advent in the his- 
 tory of the human race ; it is a mere speck in 
 his inheritance of the past, and we all tend to 
 revert to the savage. The man who does not is 
 sincerely to be pitied ; he does not know the 
 full joy of living. 
 
 Three friends that I made on this Labrador 
 coast each suggested in his own way my old 
 friend Cartwright. The first was a New Eng- 
 
 131 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 lander from a poky little suburb of a great city, 
 a clear-eyed, well-bronzed, rosy-cheeked man, 
 spare and sinewy. He had spent fourteen years 
 on this coast and he loved the life, and so did his 
 wife, who joined with him in trapping and 
 shooting. They lived in a comfortable house 
 in a lovely bay protected by a fringe of pointed 
 firs and higher land on the north, and by an 
 outlying island on the south. A spring of 
 clear cold water bubbled forth summer and 
 winter on the little beach in front of the house. 
 They had no neighbours but the white-throated 
 sparrows and hermit thrushes in summer, the 
 ptarmigan and snow buntings in winter, for 
 the nearest settlement was eighteen miles 
 away, but they did not lack for occupation and 
 diversion, and they had much of interest to 
 show and talk about when they hospitably 
 received us at their table. Of birds, as always 
 when we met intelligent people, we talked much, 
 and our host showed us some stuffed birds, his 
 own handiwork, including an albino murre, and, 
 of live birds, a pair of black ducks he had 
 brought up as pets. Of trapping he had many 
 tales to tell, both of his successes and failures. 
 He had that day returned from setting some 
 
 132 
 
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS 
 
 great bear-traps, for in the spring when the 
 bears first come out from their winter hiberna- 
 tion, their fur is in good condition. 
 
 Of the common belief, so frequently enlarged 
 upon by writers of popular natural history, that 
 animals frequently bite off their own legs to 
 free themselves from traps, he had no regard. 
 In fact, although he said the animal sometimes 
 eats the severed and dead foot under the trap, 
 he had found no evidence of their biting the 
 flesh or bone above the trap. By twisting and 
 pulling, however, in their attempts to get away, 
 he said the animal not infrequently escapes and 
 leaves the foot behind. In the case of the 
 rabbit this freeing from the trap by the loss of 
 a foot is not uncommon, an accident that the 
 slender bones and tender skin of this animal 
 would easily account for, while the usual 
 explanation, in an animal accustomed to use 
 its teeth on bark and other vegetable substances 
 only, he deemed very improbable. Although I 
 had never considered the subject before, and 
 had accepted the usual explanation, I believe he 
 is right, for the method of escape from a trap 
 by biting off the foot would be a most unnatural 
 procedure, and would call for a considerable 
 133 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 amount of reasoning power, while the struggle 
 ending in breaking away would be the natural 
 and instinctive one. 
 
 Of shooting seals with a rifle he had much to 
 tell us, and of the pleasures of this pursuit 
 conducted by lying down covered with a sack 
 on a reef, and acting and grunting hoarsely 
 like the animal; and he showed us some 
 beautiful skins both of the bay seal and of the 
 horse-head. Between the tenth of June and the 
 tenth of July he catches seals in nets, and one 
 hundred and eighty pelts were the result of 
 his work the year before. 
 
 Of his dogs he spoke with great affection, 
 and they massive brutes, some Eskimo, 
 some half Newfoundland fully reciprocated 
 it. To one who is familiar with the cruel way 
 in which many of the Eskimo dogs are treated 
 on the eastern Labrador coast, it was a pleasure 
 to see the different treatment accorded them 
 here. Unfortunately an epidemic among the 
 dogs had spread like wild -fire along the coast 
 the winter before, and many of the most 
 valued animals were dead, some within the 
 space of a day after the first seizure. 
 
 My New England Cartwright had much to 
 
 134 
 
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS 
 
 say of the intelligence and strength of some of 
 these, and of the pleasure of speeding over the 
 icy highways that line the coast in winter 
 behind a team of these useful animals. The 
 winter season, instead of shutting him up to 
 wait impatiently for milder weather, was a sea- 
 son of great interest and pleasure, the trapping 
 season and the season for much travelling. In 
 summer his means of transportation was a 
 staunch little schooner, about the size of our 
 " Belle Marguerite," to which he had just applied 
 a fresh coat of paint, and had got ready for the 
 launching. The life of this former New Eng- 
 lander was a varied and interesting one, and I 
 could not help comparing it with the life he 
 would have led if he had remained in the 
 suburb of the great city. 
 
 Of the second figure in this company of three 
 I speak with particular admiration and respect. 
 He is a Belgian who has lived here for thirteen 
 years and married a Labradorian; both he 
 and his charming wife and sister-in-law re- 
 ceived us with great courtesy and hospitality. 
 He is an interesting and picturesque figure, a 
 man in many respects like Cartwright, although 
 superficially very different, and belonging to 
 
 135 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 a different nation. At the head of a little bay 
 close by the discharge of a tumultuous river 
 on a granitic glacier-smoothed rock he has 
 built his house, the finest house I have seen 
 on all the Labrador coast. The roar of the 
 rapids beside him, and the subdued murmur of 
 the distant cataract in the forest, is always in 
 his ears. On the one side the sun rises over 
 the bay with its rocky islets, and sets on the 
 other behind the barren hills which terminate 
 his view over the dark spruce forest. On the 
 shore of the bay below him are the half dozen 
 houses of the habitants, and a tiny chapel 
 completes the picture of the little village, while 
 several fishing boats ride at anchor a stone's 
 throw away. 
 
 On the opposite side of the river are some 
 large enclosures that at once attracted our at- 
 tention. These are parks for the breeding of 
 black foxes, whose skins, beautiful in them- 
 selves, have been greatly enhanced in value 
 by the whims of royal fashion until they have 
 become one of the most precious products of 
 the Labrador coast. To the trapper in the 
 wilds they are lucky incidents, a much hoped 
 for dream which may never be realized. To 
 
 136 
 
A BLACK FOX PARK AT PIASHTE-BAI. 
 
 PIASHTE-BAI RIVER AND LAKE FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE HIGH LAND 
 
 OF THE INTERIOR. 
 
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS 
 
 produce these in captivity has been one of the 
 many schemes of the active brain of this 
 Belgian Cartwright, and he has devoted many 
 years to the study of the subject. He has 
 five or six parks each of an acre and a half in 
 extent, surrounded by strong wire netting 
 fences, supported by posts eighteen feet tall. 
 An overhang at the top prevents the escape 
 of the active inhabitants above, while the solid 
 Laurentian rock is an effectual bar below. 
 Each park contains but one family, and they 
 have plenty of room to roam, and plenty of 
 place for concealment among the stunted 
 spruces. They live well, for lobsters are 
 especially procured for their table. I caught a 
 glimpse of one splendid fellow running about 
 with his thousand dollar coat. We were told 
 that these skins are of more value than those 
 of wild ones, for the animals are well looked 
 after and their food supply never fails them. 
 It is not, as with Indians and wild foxes, a 
 short feast and a long famine. In July they 
 bring forth their litters of five to nine each, and 
 breed true. 
 
 The black fox is merely a colour-phase of 
 the common red fox, and not a separate species. 
 137 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 The red fox varies from the common form, 
 which is a rich fulvous red with a white tip 
 to the tail and small black markings on feet and 
 ears, through certain well marked stages, 
 known as the cross or patch fox, and the silver, 
 to the black fox. In the cross fox the feet, 
 legs and under parts are black, while red more 
 or less mixed and overlaying black extends 
 over the head and back. In the silver fox 
 the red is nearly absent, and the fur is dark at 
 the base, while the tips of the hairs are white 
 or gray. In the pure black fox the white or 
 silver tips to the hairs are everywhere elimi- 
 nated, except at the tip of the tail, which always 
 remains white. The red phase is of course the 
 most abundant form, while the others increase 
 in rarity in the order giyen. The black is the 
 rarest, and a good black fox skin brings an 
 extremely high price. The Fur Trade Review 
 for 1907 says: "The fashion for this article 
 continues, and the fine dark skins are specially 
 in demand the highest priced skin realized 
 ^440 " ($2,140). Our Belgian friend told us he 
 had obtained from $400 to $1,400 for his skins, 
 and averaged $700. After five or six years he 
 had succeeded in eliminating all the red from 
 
 138 
 
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS 
 
 their furs, and the animals were now breeding 
 true and producing only the black phase. 
 
 The United States Department of Agriculture 
 has recently published a farmer's bulletin on 
 the subject of silver fox farming, by Wilfred 
 H. Osgood. It concludes that fox farming 
 should never be attempted south of the southern 
 boundary of the Canadian zone, and it states 
 by way of summary that : ' ' Like most new 
 enterprises, fox raising is a business regarding 
 which opinions vary. The favourable facts are 
 that silver foxes are easily and securely kept 
 in simple wire enclosures; that suitable food 
 for them is cheap and easily obtainable; that 
 they are not subject to serious diseases, and 
 that their disposition and the colour of their 
 fur can be improved by selective breeding. 
 Opposed to these are the unfavourable facts 
 that they are by nature suspicious, nervous, and 
 not inclined to repose confidence in man; and 
 that, largely for these reasons, they do not 
 breed regularly and successfully, except when 
 cared for by experienced persons more or less 
 gifted in handling them. 
 
 " The number of persons now engaged in the 
 business is relatively small, and the work is 
 
 139 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 still experimental, yet many of the initial 
 difficulties have already been overcome. Nu- 
 merous minor failures seem explainable in large 
 measure, and are offset by several conspicuous 
 successes. It is therefore probable that under 
 proper management fox raising will be de- 
 veloped into a profitable industry, and it is 
 perhaps not too much to expect that a domestic 
 breed of foxes will be produced. Only time 
 will show how such expectations will be realized, 
 but present indications must be regarded as 
 very encouraging." 
 
 The house of this Belgian Cartwright did not 
 remind one of Labrador, although many of 
 the trophies displayed on its walls were products 
 of the country. The rooms were large and 
 comfortable, with ample doors and windows. 
 One room suggested an armoury, as it contained 
 racks of guns of all sizes and patterns, from the 
 newest hammerless breech loaders to the old- 
 time muzzle loader with an elongated barrel. 
 The window-sills of the billiard-room were lined 
 with flowering plants, and the walls contained 
 many products of the chase, boars' heads 
 from Europe and caribou antlers, seal skins 
 and bear skins from the neighbourhood. A 
 
 HO 
 
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS 
 
 walrus skull and an Eskimo harpoon from the 
 northeastern coast hung near some cabinets 
 of mounted birds, the product of his gun along 
 the coast. Among these we found a blue jay, 
 a bird hitherto unrecorded for Labrador. This 
 bird he had shot the previous winter not far 
 from his house; later we saw a single bird of 
 this species at Mingan, so that our record for 
 this bird for Labrador is very satisfactory. 
 
 One of the most interesting departments of 
 the household was the refrigerating plant, built 
 after the master's own design. It consisted of 
 a detached building in which were several 
 zinc-lined chests surrounded by a freezing 
 mixture of snow and salt. In these chests, 
 frozen solidly, was game of all sorts, mostly 
 obtained in winter for summer use. Trout and 
 porcupines, haunch of caribou and of beaver 
 and of other animals, for our host, like Cart- 
 wright of old, being of independent mind and 
 not subservient to custom, was fond of trying 
 the flesh of animals not commonly used as food. 
 Among the birds were willow ptarmigan, white 
 as snow, with the exception of their black tails 
 and the black centres of their wing quills, and 
 a couple of splendid Barrow's golden-eye ducks. 
 
 141 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 These were at once courteously given us for our 
 collections. 
 
 Of the man himself it is almost unnecessary 
 to speak; the environment which he created 
 is sufficient to describe him. Ardently devoted 
 to the chase, a good shot, interested in natural 
 history, a clever artist, a quick and accurate 
 observer, he afforded us many delightful hours 
 spent in his company, for we were so fortunate 
 as to meet him not only as guests at his house, 
 but at several other places on the coast where 
 he had gone to meet Indians to trade for their 
 furs and incidentally to fish and to shoot. His 
 observations on birds, for one who had not 
 made an especial study of the subject, were 
 particularly acute and interesting, and he 
 entered with ardour at our suggestion upon a 
 more careful and scientific study of ornithology. 
 Like Cartwright he had kept a journal of his 
 daily life and observations. 
 
 Like his prototype Cartwright, also, he was 
 interesting in figure and in dress. Picture to 
 yourself a rather small man with pointed beard 
 and moustaches, piercing black eyes lighted 
 up with kindliness and vivacity, and a lithe 
 frame showing great vigour and activity. In 
 142 
 
THREE LITTLE INDIAN GIRLS. 
 
 TWO MONTAGNAIS COMPANIONS AT MINGAN, 
 
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS 
 
 the field he wore a dark green corduroy suit of 
 knickerbockers, and a tall pointed cap made of 
 otters' tails. His gun hung from his shoulder 
 suspended by a strap. A photograph of him 
 I saw in the house of one of his numerous 
 friends on the coast shows him in winter dress. 
 He is on snow-shoes, and is clad entirely in 
 white with the exception of his dark seal-skin 
 boots and of the embroidery on the cuffs of 
 his mittens. His dark eyes, moustaches and 
 beard contrast well with the white pointed hood 
 which terminates, Eskimo-like, the upper part 
 of the costume. A gun is held over his left 
 shoulder, and a fine black fox, as in the old 
 print of Cartwright, is slung under his right; 
 the handle of a hunter's axe appears behind. 
 
 A man is often damned by his neighbours and 
 acquaintances, but everywhere we went on the 
 coast, people of all sorts spoke well of our 
 Belgian Cartwright. They all recognized his 
 capabilities and his constant courtesy. Some 
 spoke of his great accuracy of aim with shot- 
 gun or rifle, others of his eccentricity in sitting 
 down to a dinner of fox or some other unheard 
 of meat, and others again of his skill in bil- 
 liards. The story goes that when fishermen or 
 
 143 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 trappers visit him who have never before met 
 with such a piece of civilization as a billiard 
 table, he has innocently amused himself by 
 showing them grotesque ways of playing, using 
 the butt end of the cue or pushing it with both 
 hands as gravely as if it were the approved 
 method, but, however he plays, he is easily a 
 match for half a dozen of them. 
 
 I am sure we shall never forget him nor the 
 dinner at his house. After several days' cruising 
 in " La Belle Marguerite " we landed at his little 
 bay, and paid our respects to him. Our cre- 
 dentials as scientific bird students obtained 
 from the department of Colonization, Mines 
 and Fisheries of Quebec served here as else- 
 where to introduce us, and we were soon deep 
 in a laboured conversation on the subject of 
 the birds of Labrador. Laboured the con- 
 versation certainly was on our parts, for, as 
 our host spoke only French, we were obliged 
 to resort at times to our guide, companion and 
 friend a pocket conversational dictionary. 
 
 As we beheld ourselves for the first time for 
 many days in the mirror of the dressing-room 
 where our host left us to prepare for dinner, our 
 hearts failed us, and I left my friend con- 
 
 144 
 
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS 
 
 templating his ragged hunting suit and two 
 weeks' beard in dismay, while I courageously 
 descended to the salon in my a little less ragged 
 khakies. Our host wore green corduroy knicker- 
 bockers, silk stockings and pumps, the ladies 
 were becomingly attired in delicate white 
 material of Parisian and not Labrador make, 
 when my friend sailed into the room with 
 great dignity in his flannel shirt sleeves and 
 ancient " fluffy " leather waistcoat. He con- 
 fessed to me afterwards that the anguish of 
 deciding between a shrunken, stained and torn 
 shooting jacket on the one hand and shirt 
 sleeves on the other was intense, but the 
 " fluffy " leather waistcoat turned the scale 
 in favour of the latter unpardonable costume. 
 However, we endeavoured to make up for the 
 poverty of our clothes by the elegance of our 
 conversation, and we drank the health of the 
 madame and la belle soeur in the red wine of 
 sunny France with carefully chosen phrases 
 from our little dictionary. I could not help 
 thinking of the tramps in Erminie. A five 
 course dinner with all the " frills " on the 
 Labrador coast was certainly a surprise. 
 
 The third in this triumvirate of men of 
 
 145 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 original ideas presented an entirely different 
 figure from the last. A tall, raw-boned Yankee, 
 a painter by trade, and at first sight an un- 
 interesting personality. As we came to know 
 the man more intimately, however, and as he 
 revealed to us his history, his plans and his 
 views of life, we could not but admire and be 
 attracted by him. Although in appearance, 
 voice and conversation he was a typical Yankee, 
 he "hailed from" Western Massachusetts, 
 his name was evidently French. His ancestors, it 
 appeared, had come from France and settled 
 at Quebec, where they prospered. His great 
 grandfather, visiting the mother country, left 
 his affairs in the hands of the priests to guard 
 and preserve. He died abroad and his son 
 and grandson, the latter the father of our 
 hero, failed to claim their patrimony from 
 the Church, but moved to a little village in 
 New England where our Yankee Cartwright 
 grew up to the humble trade of house-painter. 
 It was evident, however, that the adventurous 
 and independent blood of his ancestors coursed 
 through his veins, and he refused to remain in 
 his native town, but travelled from place to 
 place plying his trade, but fretting all the time 
 
 146 
 
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS 
 
 at the bondage of the trade-unions. Finally 
 the spirit moved him to visit in a brief vacation 
 the home of his ancestors in Quebec, and while 
 there he stumbled on the mail steamer about 
 to leave for the Labrador Coast. He took 
 passage, intending to return by the same boat, 
 but at Seven Islands he kindly offered to help 
 out for a few days in painting the church, 
 taking the place of a painter who had fallen ill. 
 This was three years ago and he has been the 
 ecclesiastical painter along the coast ever since, 
 kept there partly by the entreaties of the 
 priests, but chiefly, he admitted, by his enjoy- 
 ment of the independence of the life, and the 
 fact that he was his own master and not subject 
 to walking delegates. He could work over 
 time to his heart's content, and do his very 
 best without fear of disparaging another. He 
 was particularly enthusiastic about the health- 
 fulness of the climate, and, like Cartwright of 
 old, declared that, although the thermometer 
 went many degrees below zero in the winter, 
 he never felt chilly as at home. 
 
 His plans for the future were certainly 
 original and were all carefully arranged. Al- 
 though he thoroughly enjoyed his work and the 
 
 147 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 free hand he had in it, he had decided that a 
 year from that summer he would join forces 
 with some good Indian friends of his, and go 
 with them into the interior on their regular 
 hunting and trapping expeditions, not to 
 emerge until the following June. In this way 
 he expected to satisfy his love for adventure 
 and wild life, and to lay in a stock of furs with 
 which to astonish his New England friends. 
 
 My modern Cartwrights are all good men and 
 true. 
 
 148 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 " Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness." 
 
 Cowper. 
 
 THE Labrador peninsula is a region well 
 adapted for fur-bearing animals. Along 
 the edges on the eastern and southern coasts the 
 white settler has long since well-nigh exter- 
 minated or driven off these animals with the 
 notable exception of the crafty fox, but the 
 interior still serves as a habitation and fairly 
 safe refuge for many beasts, although their 
 numbers are considerably diminished owing to 
 extensive fires * that have swept the country, 
 and to constant persecution. Most of the 
 interior is unexplored by the white man, yet 
 his influence through powder and ball supplied 
 
 1 According to Hind immense forest fires occurred in 
 Labrador in 1785, 1814, 1857 and 1859, and a very extensive 
 one I was told by Mr. J. A. Wilson, the factor at Mingan, 
 occurred about 40 years ago. 
 
 149 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 to the Indians, and his eagerness for trade has 
 had its effect on the native animals. 
 
 Hind has penetrated into the interior about 
 one hundred and fifty miles by way of the 
 Moisie River. Cabot has explored from the 
 eastern coast to the valley of the George River, 
 while Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, and following 
 closely in her steps, Dillon Wallace, have 
 travelled up the valley of the Nascaupee from 
 the Northwest River, crossed Lake Michikamau 
 and the height of land and descended the 
 George River to Ungava Bay. 
 
 But the explorer who has traversed Labrador 
 far more than all of these, and one who has 
 added most to our accurate knowledge of the 
 interior, is the Canadian geologist, A. P. Low. 
 He has done his work quietly and unheralded, 
 and the results are buried among the other 
 documents of the Canadian Geological Survey. 
 To tell of all his doings would be long, but 
 among other things he has crossed Labrador 
 in a canoe from south to north by way of Lake 
 Mistassini, the East Main, Kaniapiskau and 
 Koksoak Rivers. He has also ascended the 
 Hamilton River, portaged by the Grand Falls, 
 grand indeed, for they descend 760 feet in 
 
 150 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 twelve miles and fall 302 feet sheer, and 
 explored Lake Michikamau. From the Ham- 
 ilton River he ascended the Attikonak, 
 and, by way of the Romaine and the St. John 
 Rivers, descended to the Gulf of St. Law- 
 rence. 
 
 Yet after all the greater part of this interior 
 of Labrador is a vast wilderness, still unspoiled 
 by the whites, still a happy hunting-ground for 
 the Indians. The Eskimos, true sea-dogs that 
 they are, keep to the sea-coast, except in the 
 far north beyond the Koksoak River. Of the 
 Indians there are two main tribes in Labrador, 
 divisions of the Cree branch of the great 
 Algonquin family. North of the Hamilton 
 River dwell the Nascaupees, while south of this 
 grand natural boundary the Montagnais or 
 Mountaineers have their migratory homes. 
 Besides these is the small tribe of coastal 
 Indians of Hudson Bay. 
 
 Originally dwelling further to the west these 
 Algon quins were gradually driven east and 
 north during the i6th and iyth centuries by 
 the terrible Iroquois, whose name even now 
 strikes terror to their hearts and serves as a 
 bogey to frighten their children. The Iroquois 
 
 151 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 were said to have pursued them at one time 
 as far as the Natashquan River. With the 
 Eskimos, whom the Indians always hated and 
 despised and with whom they do not inter- 
 marry, they were formerly always at war. 
 While the Eskimos in the time of Jacques 
 Cartier inhabited the whole of the eastern and 
 even some of the southern coast, probably as 
 far west as the Eskimo River, they are now 
 not found south of Hamilton Inlet, or Es- 
 quimaux Bay as it was formerly called. Even 
 as late as the time of Cartwright, in the latter 
 part of the i8th century, the Eskimos came as 
 far south as the region about the Straits of 
 Belle Isle. Armed with guns procured from 
 the French, the Indians, although terrified by 
 the Iroquois, were able to strike terror in turn 
 into the hearts of the Eskimos who fell back 
 before their onslaughts and deserted this 
 southern region. Battle Harbour is said to 
 have received its name from one of the last 
 battles fought by these two aboriginal races. 
 This could hardly have been the case, however, 
 for Cartwright mentions the name Battle 
 Harbour in his Journal, although he does not 
 allude to any fight there between the two races, 
 
 152 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 and Eskimos at that time dwelt as far south as 
 Cape Charles. 
 
 One beautiful day the last of May when " La 
 Belle Marguerite " was anchored in a sheltered 
 little cove among Les Isles des Corneilles, I was 
 delighted by a cry from Mathias of " Les 
 sauvages ! " a cry which, in the earlier 
 history of French-speaking America, has times 
 innumerable struck terror into the heart of 
 the white man. Not so in this case, for les 
 sauvages here are no longer savage, they are 
 but a peaceful remnant of their old selves, and, 
 being well treated by the white man, treat him 
 well in return, as indeed they have always done 
 when dealt with in this unusual manner. Two 
 barges like our own had sailed into a neighbour- 
 ing cove, and, through the glass, I could see a 
 motley crowd of men, women, children and 
 dogs tumbling into canoes and going ashore. 
 They soon were grouped about a fire and were 
 evidently cooking and eating their breakfast, 
 which, judging from the shells seen later, 
 consisted of roasted eiders' eggs. A brilliant 
 patch of colour they made on the barren hill- 
 side, that contrasted well with the gray of the 
 lichen-covered rocks, the green of the firs, and 
 
 153 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 the white of the snowbanks. On visiting them 
 I found a camp well on the way to completion. 
 Each was doing his or her part, chiefly hers. 
 The women were gathering balsam boughs and 
 thatching them into thick springy beds for 
 their wigwams, which were to be erected in 
 flat places from which they had first scratched 
 away the moss. A man and woman were 
 busily engaged in scraping the hair from a seal 
 skin, keeping it wet in a pot of water placed 
 between them, the first stage in the manu- 
 facture of skin-boots. Children and dogs were 
 everywhere, and while the former showed 
 timidity and even terror, the latter showed 
 belligerency at my approach. The terror dis- 
 played by the little Indian children at the sight 
 of a stranger was as marked as was the fear- 
 lessness and placidity on the part of the infant- 
 in-arms under the same circumstances. 
 
 There seemed to be four families, five men 
 and five or six women young and old, seven or 
 eight girls and boys of all ages, and an infant, 
 not to mention numerous Indian dogs and a 
 cat. 
 
 My communications with them were in- 
 teresting to me, but not very satisfactory, as I 
 154 
 
INDIANS SHAVING "SEAL SKIN AT THE ISLES DES CORNEILLES. 
 
 THE PAPOOSE. 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 could not tinders tand their language, nor they 
 mine, with one exception in the case of an 
 elderly man, who from time to time ejaculated 
 a few words of French, and who appeared to 
 understand some of my broken sentences in the 
 same language. However, all were pleasant and 
 jolly, and there was considerable laughter, 
 probably at my expense, a laughter in which 
 I joined as I wished to appear sociable and 
 was unable to express myself in any other 
 way. 
 
 The faces of these people were dark olive 
 brown in colour, and glistened in the sun as if 
 they had been oiled, as I suspect was indeed 
 the case with some; their noses were aquiline; 
 their eyes were black and rather narrow and 
 in some set aslant as in the Mongolian type. 
 A few showed signs of admixture with the 
 white race. 
 
 While the men wore their straight black hair 
 rather long about the neck, the women and 
 girls had theirs tied up in tight oblong knots 
 or rolls wound with black cloth in front of the 
 ears, forming a conspicuous and characteristic 
 mark of their sex, absent only in very young 
 children. The women and girls all wore pic- 
 155 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 turesque caps of red and dark blue broadcloth 
 in alternate stripes in shape like a liberty cap. 
 The bands of these caps were ornamented in 
 bead- work which seemed to increase in extent 
 with the increasing years of the wearer. The 
 men's head gear was a more prosaic black cloth 
 cap with a visor. Both sexes wore either long 
 seal skin boots with the hair shaved off, or, 
 as was usually the case, low caribou skin mocca- 
 sins, more or less ornamented, and thick woollen 
 stockings, of bright primitive colours, red, 
 green, white, blue and purple, in stripes. These 
 stockings in the case of the men, were pulled up 
 to the knees over the trousers, which were the 
 ordinary cylindrical affairs of civilization, weath- 
 ered from black or brown, to a good neutral 
 tint. A rough cloth jacket or one of dirty white 
 canvas completed the costume in the men, 
 which was given a touch of colour by a red or 
 blue handkerchief tied about the neck and 
 shoulders. 
 
 The women wore stout woollen skirts, gen- 
 erally of dark plaid, their costume completed 
 above by a bodice of red or plaid, fitting snugly 
 about their powerful waists and shoulders, and 
 by a coloured handkerchief that was knotted 
 
 156 
 
WIGWAM IN PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTION AT MINGAN. 
 
 COMPLETED WIGWAM. 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 or folded about the neck. The infant was bound 
 up as all proper Indian papooses are, with a 
 criss-cross of lacings over an abundance of 
 wrappings, the whole forming a bundle that 
 could as easily be handled, and that made as 
 little fuss as a small bag of flour. 
 
 The common posture taken by these Indians 
 was a kneeling one, with the body resting on 
 the heels as shown in several of the photographs, 
 a position very difficult to maintain for any 
 length of time by a white man. This is the 
 same posture commonly assumed by the Jap- 
 anese as shown in the familiar pictures of these 
 people grouped about tea-trays. According to 
 Professor Okakura Yoshisaburo of Tokio, the 
 Japanese and Koreans alone of Asiatic peoples 
 habitually adopt this posture, while the Chinese 
 sit as do the Europeans. 
 
 The wigwams of this people that I saw at 
 various places along the coast were of three 
 sorts: the ordinary cotton wall-tent of the 
 white man, the wigwam made of straight 
 slender poles set in a circle and leaning in to 
 the centre, and the lodge of birch sticks stuck 
 in the ground in a circle or oval, and bent so 
 as to form a low rounded or oval structure, 
 
 157 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 strengthened by split birch saplings interwoven 
 at right angles. These last two forms of dwelling 
 were covered with canvas, I saw none 
 covered with skins or birch bark. Nearly all 
 contained small oblong sheet-iron stoves with 
 tiny stove-pipes that emerged between the 
 sticks at the top of the wigwam. Much of their 
 cooking seemed to be done at fires outside, 
 where a large pot was to be seen hanging from a 
 wooden bar between two poles. 
 
 These friends of mine, these " savages " at 
 the Isles of the Crow, were not mercenary, they 
 had nothing to sell, but having completed the 
 labours of the year in the interior in trapping for 
 furs, and having sold the products to the 
 traders, they were, like ladies and gentlemen, 
 travelling about visiting their friends and 
 spending their summer's vacation at the 
 sea-side. Later they would attend religious 
 services. 
 
 That they were making disastrous inroads on 
 the sea-birds, and contributing to their ex- 
 termination, there was no doubt, but it must 
 be remembered that before the arrival of the 
 whites, when the Indians were in larger numbers 
 along this coast, the sea-birds easily held their 
 
 158 
 
WIGWAM AND INDIAN FAMILY AT PIASHTE-BAI. 
 
 INDIANS AT THE ISLES DES CORNEILLES. 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 own. The moderate and natural pruning of the 
 savages did no appreciable harm. It is the 
 white man that has brought the birds so low by 
 systematic egging, and, although the eggs are 
 not exported in schooners to Halifax now as in 
 Audubon's day, a continuous robbery of the 
 eggs by the fishermen is still kept up along the 
 coast. And they can hardly be blamed, for 
 eiders' eggs are easily found and make delicious 
 eating. But, as I have said in another place, 1 
 it is a great pity that these men should be 
 allowed to " kill the goose that lays the golden 
 egg," and that they should not be taught like 
 the Norwegians to protect the birds, and take 
 in return for the trouble a moderate amount of 
 down and eggs. This might be made an in- 
 dustry of immense and increasing value to the 
 entire coast, for there is no region better adapted 
 to the needs of the eider duck, but as long as 
 the reckless methods now employed are con- 
 tinued, and as long as guns are so constantly 
 in use in the nesting season, so long will this 
 war of extermination go on until there are no 
 birds left. Would that a Labrador St. Cuth- 
 bert might arise who would bless and tame 
 1 Along the Labrador Coast, Boston, 1904, pp. 263, 264. 
 159 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 these eiders! The nesting birds, particularly 
 the females, are easily shot, and at Piashte-bai 
 I saw several of their carcasses spitted and 
 being dried and smoked in front of an Indian 
 wigwam. 
 
 We met with several similar camping parties 
 of Indians, although we were rather too early 
 in the season to find many such, but at Mingan 
 and at the Natashquan River we saw large 
 numbers of the Montagnais. At the latter 
 place they have a small village of wooden 
 houses on the right bank of the mouth of the 
 Great Natashquan River some four miles from 
 the white settlement at the Little Natashquan. 
 Having spent the winter in the interior, hunting 
 and trapping, they had arrived here in May, and 
 it happened on May 3ist, the day we tramped 
 over through the dunes and along the beach 
 from Natashquan, that we arrived just as the 
 Indians were embarking for Musquarro. This 
 point, some fifteen miles farther down the 
 coast, is an Indian mission, presided over by 
 a Roman Catholic priest, who goes there once a 
 year at this season for the purpose of celebrating 
 the various rites of the church feasts and 
 fasts, baptisms, marriages and funeral services 
 
 160 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 for the benefit and spiritual health of these 
 Indians. Indeed the Musquarro missionary 
 had come down on the steamer with us, a 
 tall, austere man, a typical robe noir. It was 
 in 1660 that the Indians of Seven Islands re- 
 quested the Jesuits at Tadousac to send them a 
 robe noir, as they dared not go to Tadousac for 
 fear of the Iroquois. 
 
 At Musquarro the Indians stay several weeks 
 enjoying their religious life, for besides the sale 
 of their furs, one of the chief objects of their 
 visit to the coast is the attainment of a veneer 
 of Christianity. With this veneer they return 
 to the Natashquan River and ascend it in 
 August for another winter's work in the interior, 
 where, doubtless, some of the veneer wears off, 
 and a little paganism crops out. 
 
 Cabot says: "Under the strict injunctions 
 of the Gulf missionaries, the sound of the 
 te'uehigan, 'the ceremonial drum,' is not heard 
 on the summer reserve, but once beyond hearing 
 of the missions some remnant of the old rites 
 is not far to seek. On the other hand, the 
 church calendar is carried everywhere over 
 the Montagnais country; each day a pin is 
 moved forward and pinned through the paper 
 
 161 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 at the succeeding date, and feast-days and 
 Sundays are pretty well observed." r 
 
 The day was a dark and lowering one this 
 3ist of May; low-lying clouds scudded across 
 the sky, the sand-dunes were gray and for- 
 bidding, the river, over a mile wide here at the 
 mouth, the colour of lead. Loons were driving 
 north before the chilling blasts, in a continuous 
 stream, two or three every few minutes, and a 
 migrating band of tree swallows, with promise 
 of summer, flew joyously about the great river, 
 while on the bleak shore a picturesque scene 
 was being enacted by the Indians, the bright 
 colours of whose costumes relieved the sombre 
 gray ness of river and sky and shore. 
 
 They were all intent on their purpose, these 
 savages of the Natashquan, and paid scant 
 attention to us, as they hastened down over 
 the sands to the shore of the river, carrying their 
 packs and pots and babies, men, women and 
 children, dogs and even cats, all higgledy- 
 piggledy, and all in a great hurry to be off. 
 There were perhaps eight or ten families in all, 
 men in the prime of life, with erect, wiry 
 
 1 Labrador, by Wilfred T. Grenfell and others, New 
 York, 1909, pp. 224, 225. 
 
 162 
 
LOADING THE CANOE. 
 
 THE EMBARKATION OF THE MONTAGNAIS AT NATASHQUAN FOR MUSQUARRO 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 figures and bright, even handsome faces, most 
 of them of medium height but some noticeably 
 tall; old men with stragglng moustaches and 
 beards, and shrunken but still erect figures; 
 women of all ages, the old, wrinkled and hag- 
 like with dirty gray complexions, the young, 
 clear-eyed and plump, their smooth, olive- 
 brown skins tinged with rose on the cheeks, 
 attractive to look upon; young boys and girls 
 and stolid papooses. The small slinking fox- 
 like Indian dog, black and tan in colour, was 
 everywhere, each one nervously anxious not to 
 be left behind. Every family possessed a cat, 
 either carried in arms, or harnessed and straining 
 at the leash, or again following free like a dog, 
 anxious not to get its feet wet on the beach, 
 but evidently still more anxious to go with the 
 crowd in the canoes. We were told that the 
 fashion of cats is a recent acquisition by these 
 Mountaineers, and the cats were treated most 
 kindly as pets, in marked contrast to the treat- 
 ment of the dogs, who lead, indeed, a dog's life. 
 The costumes were like those of their relatives 
 at Les Isles des Corneilles, but some of the old 
 men wore long skirt-like coats, and had their 
 heads bundled up in red handkerchiefs, or 
 
 163 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 faded pieces of coloured cloth against the 
 weather. One little boy of three or four years 
 wore a long fur coat with skin side out, and a 
 hood that dangled at his back. When I tried 
 to photograph him he screamed with terror and 
 hid behind his mother. Doubtless he thought 
 me an Iroquois. A pitiable cripple, an aged 
 child with shrunken body and twisted ex- 
 tremities, scurried prone like a hideous great 
 spider over the sands, scaled the sides of a 
 canoe and dropped into its depths. 
 
 Pipe-smoking was well nigh universal, and 
 not confined to the men, nor to the adults. I 
 shall always remember the picture made on the 
 background of this bleak shore by a buxom 
 young matron, with the usual coquettish 
 rosettes of hair before her ears and her jaunty 
 red and blue liberty cap, a tight fitting red 
 woollen bodice, green plaid skirt, so short as to 
 fully display stout legs clad in thick woollen 
 stockings of red and white and in embroidered 
 moccasins, striding over the sands, smoking a 
 pipe, and bearing, as carelessly and as easily as if 
 they had been of feather-weight, a lusty papoose 
 in her arms and a large pack on her shoulders. 
 
 It was a busy and confusing scene, and one 
 
 164 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 felt anxious that a child or bundle or dog should 
 not be left behind in the hurry of embarkation. 
 Their canoes were drawn up along the beach, 
 and into these they hastily threw their bundles 
 and deposited themselves, while the dogs and 
 children scrambled in as best they could. I 
 counted two men, four women, two small 
 children, a papoose, a dog and a cat in one 
 canoe, and the canoes were not large. The 
 cat looked calmly over the gunwale at the 
 alarmingly near-by water, the women smoked, 
 chatted and laughed, while the men paddled 
 skilfully but nonchalantly to the barge an- 
 chored in the stream. There were four of these 
 barges, and they were soon well loaded, the 
 sails hoisted, and away they went with the 
 strong wind and the swift current. Some of the 
 canoes were towed, others hauled up on deck, 
 and a belated canoe containing two boys, a 
 large pack and an anxious dog was picked up 
 without disaster by the last barge as it sailed 
 along. They were off for their religious feast 
 of the year. In religious matters at least it is 
 certainly a short feast and a long famine with 
 these Indians. Migrations, whether of bird, 
 beast or savage, are always interesting, and 
 
 165 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 the annual migration of the Montagnais Indians 
 is not the least so. 
 
 According to the annual report of the De- 
 partment of Indian Affairs published in Ottawa 
 in 1908, the number of Montagnais Indians for 
 this strip of southern Labrador coast is 694; 
 of these 76 come to the shore at Natashquan, 
 241 at Mingan and 377 at Seven Islands. The 
 numbers given by Hind for 1857 were 100, 500 
 and 300 respectively. With the exception of 
 a very few who are too old or feeble to travel, 
 all of these Indians spend the greater part of 
 the year in the interior, making their annual 
 migration to the coast in May or early in June 
 when the ice goes out of the rivers, and re- 
 turning in August. Those whose brief summer 
 residence is at Seven Islands generally reach 
 the interior by the St. Marguerite or by the 
 Moisie River, while the Mingan contingent 
 ascend the St. John River, and, by a series of 
 smaller streams and lakes and many portages, 
 cross to the Romaine, up which they travel into 
 the interior. The Indians coming to the mouth 
 of the Natashquan use that great river as a 
 highway into the interior. 
 
 The early return of the Indians to the wilds 
 
 166 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 in August is partly in order to ascend the rivers 
 before they are frozen, and partly to be in time 
 for the annual migration of the caribou, but 
 it is only in the north that this migration takes 
 place on a large scale, and here the Nascaupees 
 spear the animals in great numbers in the lakes 
 and rivers. Rabbits, ptarmigan, spruce par- 
 tridges, trout, ducks and geese help out the 
 larders, but the Montagnais are becoming more 
 and more dependent on the flour and other 
 provisions that they obtain in barter for their 
 furs at the Hudson's Bay Company's Posts. 
 
 Hind, quoting a former officer of the Hudson's 
 Bay Company, says of the Montagnais: " Their 
 country then abounded with the deer [caribou]. 
 Porcupine were so numerous, that they used to 
 find and kill (when travelling) a daily suffi- 
 ciency for their food without searching for 
 them. Beaver were also plenty, and the white 
 partridge [ptarmigan] seldom failed to visit 
 our shores yearly, about the commencement of 
 December, even from the heights of Hudson's 
 Straits. While at present the deer are ex- 
 tremely scarce, porcupine almost wholly extinct, 
 beaver very rarely to be got, and the white 
 partridge is seen only every third and fourth 
 167 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 year. Starvation was in those days unknown 
 both to Montagnais and Nasquapees, but, these 
 eighteen years past, some annually fall victims. 
 At the time when the porcupine were so very 
 numerous in the forest all over the country, and 
 even in the woods lining the seashore, an Indian 
 would then consider 50 pounds of flour a 
 superfluous weight to carry with him to the 
 woods where he intended to pass the winter, 
 from his certainty of finding as many porcu- 
 pines as he chose to kill, and other animals fit 
 for food in proportion; but at present they 
 have to carry in as much flour as they can, and 
 those who penetrate far inland must carefully 
 economize their provisions until such time as 
 they reach the large lakes where fish are to be 
 found. Another and very serious circumstance 
 the Indian has to contend against, is the yearly 
 decline of the furred animals to what they 
 formerly Jiave been. With all his labours, 
 trapping and hunting, he seldom can pay his 
 debt at the Company's posts, and most often 
 only meets part of his expenses, which are 
 yearly on the increase." 
 
 This decline in game is chiefly to be attributed 
 to the extensive fires already mentioned, which 
 168 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 have destroyed the forest and soil alike, and 
 partly to the excessive killing by fire-arms. 
 
 The chief occupation of the long season in the 
 interior from August to May or June, besides 
 the eternal search for food, is trapping of the 
 fur-bearing animals, martens, beaver, lynx, 
 fox, muskrat, mink and otter. In the pursuit 
 of these and others of the family the Indians 
 cover great distances, going at times not only 
 as far as the Hamilton and Northwest River, 
 the southern boundary of the hunting grounds 
 of their cousins the Nascaupees, but even at 
 times to the waters of the George River in 
 Ungava. Occasionally, if they have had a bad 
 season, and they are starving, a few come out 
 for supplies in April, dragging their canoes over 
 the ice or leaving them behind. Occasionally 
 this early return to the coast takes place on 
 account of their early success in obtaining a 
 full supply of furs. 
 
 During the winter they live in the conical 
 wigwams already described. In case of death 
 the body is usually brought to the coast to be 
 given Christian burial, and the little graveyard 
 by the Indian church at Mingan is crowded with 
 169 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 wooden crosses, on which are written or rudely 
 carved the names of the dead. 
 
 At Mingan I had the best opportunity to 
 observe these Indians as we spent a week 
 there from the i4th to the 2ist of June, close 
 to the Hudson's Bay Company's Post at the 
 house of the old salmon- fisher of the place. The 
 Indians had not all come out of the woods, but 
 new families were arriving every day. The 
 large kitchen of the salmon-fisher's house was 
 an attractive place and was visited in the 
 evening by fur traders, salmon-fishers from the 
 mouth of the Mingan River, the clerks from 
 the H. B. C. Post and Indians. The old salmon- 
 fisher himself was a picturesque figure, tall 
 and strong, slim and wiry, but slightly bent 
 with age; his beard was long and white, his 
 eyes blue and kindly. His wife was a dark, 
 black-eyed woman, bright and intelligent, and 
 they had a large family of children of all ages, 
 speaking French among themselves, Indian 
 frequently, and English as occasion demanded. 
 The kitchen was a long, low-studded room whose 
 centre of attraction was a large iron stove always 
 filled with glowing logs. Suspended from the 
 middle of the ceiling above the stove were 
 
 170 
 
OUR HOST, THE SALMON-FISHER AT MINGAN, AND HIS OLD 
 COMPANION. 
 
 MR. J. A. WILSON, FACTOR AT THE H. B. C. POST AT MINGAN, ON THE STEPS 
 OF THE COMPANY'S HOUSE BUILT BY MR. DONALD ALEXANDER SMITH, 
 NOW LORD STRATHCONA AND MONT ROYAL. 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 wooden racks, generally decorated with drying 
 stockings, mittens and moccasins. On hooks 
 on the rafters were five guns of various makes 
 and ages, the most formidable of which was a 
 great muzzle-loader with a barrel three and a 
 half feet long. Long benches were placed 
 around the room for the convenience of the 
 family and the visitors, and the conversation 
 in the three different tongues was chiefly about 
 salmon, although it may have wandered to 
 other channels in the case of the blushing clerk 
 and the eldest daughter. 
 
 Mingan has an interesting history. The 
 company of the One Hundred Associates, also 
 called the company of New France, was founded 
 in 1627 by Cardinal Richelieu and five partners. 
 Under them was held the " Terre ferme de 
 Mingan," which was described as extending 
 from Cape Cormorant on the west to "La 
 Grand Anse " or "La Baie des Espagnols " on 
 the east, and two leagues back. This eastern 
 boundary has been liberally interpreted by the 
 company as Bradore, while the crown recently 
 contended that it was Agwanus. In 1661, or 
 nine years before the Hudson's Bay Company 
 received its charter, a charter was granted to 
 
 171 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 Sieur Bissot de la Riviere for this seigniory of 
 Mingan or Labrador Company as it was also 
 called, and to this company the H. B. C. pays 
 rent. The following notice is posted at Mingan : 
 
 "Notice is hereby given, that the Hudson's Bay Com- 
 pany are the Lessees of the following section of land in 
 the Seigniory of Mingan, from the Labrador Company, 
 viz., 
 
 " From the west bank of the Mingan River running in 
 a Northwesterly direction along the sea-coast to the 
 east bank of the creek commonly known as Patterson's 
 Brook, situated about half way between Long-Point of 
 Mingan and Mingan proper, and running due North, a 
 distance of two miles from the sea-coast. 
 
 " Any person found trespassing in the above defined land 
 will be prosecuted according to law. 
 
 "HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY 
 
 "per M. R. GRAHAME." 
 
 To avoid this rule and yet be able to do 
 business with the Indians, an independent fur- 
 trader has built a store house on piles between 
 tides near the Indian village, and carries on a 
 trade with the Indians from a point he claims 
 to be on the high seas, and therefore outside 
 of the Seigniory! Our Belgian friend accom- 
 plishes the same purpose by anchoring his 
 boat in the sound by Mingan, and trades with 
 the Indians who bring out their furs in canoes ; 
 "all is fair in trade and war! " 
 
 172 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 Hanging in the vestibule of the little office 
 of the Post were several pairs of snow-shoes, 
 discarded for a brief season between snows. 
 The Labrador snow-shoe or racquette is almost 
 everywhere tailless or nearly so; in fact their 
 outline is almost circular or only slightly ovoid, 
 but they make up in breadth what they lack in 
 length. Some of them, however, have short 
 rounded tails and are appropriately called 
 " beaver- tails." The absence of tails makes 
 progress through scrubby woods and brush 
 easier than where the ordinary elongated shoes 
 are used, and the Labrador racquettes are par- 
 ticularly adapted to the quick turns needed by 
 those who hunt and tend traps. On that 
 account they are very useful w r hen one is follow- 
 ing and studying birds, for with these shoes 
 one can easily turn completely around in a 
 small space, while with the long ones a con- 
 siderable amount of backing and filling is 
 necessary, as well as careful attention to the 
 tails of the shoes, during which process the birds 
 may be lost to sight. I have found them very 
 satisfactory. 
 
 One of the buildings of the Hudson's Bay 
 Company here at Mingan was built about 60 
 173 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 years ago under the direction of Mr. Donald 
 Alexander Smith, who was then the factor at 
 this Post. Mr. Smith is now Lord Strathcona 
 and Mont Royal, the head of this rich and 
 powerful Company of Hudson's Bay. This 
 historic house is not used now, as a larger one 
 has since been built for the factor. It is a 
 small single story square house, painted white, 
 standing just to the eastward of the tiny office 
 building, its platform surrounded by a neat 
 white fence. The dark coloured roof with the 
 usual upcurved edges is relieved by white 
 dormer windows. A great knocker adorns the 
 door, which has two small panes of glass set 
 near the top. Lord Strathcona began his 
 service for the Honourable Company as an 
 apprentice at Rigolet in 1838, and served for 
 thirteen years on the Labrador coast. I 
 could not help picturing the possible future of 
 the young blue-eyed, fair-haired clerk, but a 
 year out from Scotland, who was tactfully 
 managing the black-eyed, dark- haired Indians 
 at the store-house, and I was amused to hear 
 him conversing with them in their own language 
 with a broad Scotch accent. He seemed to be 
 particularly successful in his sales of a calicc 
 
 174 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 that had won the hearts of the women, a real 
 chef d'ceuvre in the calico line, for it was purple 
 on one side and olive green with yellow spots 
 on the other. The sales proceeded leisurely 
 amid much talk and laughter. 
 
 Like the Indians I enjoyed wandering about 
 the store-house, for it was an interesting place 
 and contained everything that heart could 
 desire in these regions. Furs alone were missing, 
 for these are the medium of exchange, and for 
 these the store-goods were bartered by the 
 Indians, and the furs are transported to Lon- 
 don. I should dearly have liked to be present 
 during the trading process between the factor 
 of the Post and the Indians, but I was told that 
 the rules of the Company required that no out- 
 sider should be present not even another 
 Indian. The beaver skin is still the standard 
 of exchange at this Post in terms of which all 
 other furs are reckoned. 
 
 At the trading in the store, however, I was 
 often present. The Indians are trusted im- 
 plicitly, and are allowed to wander about the 
 store, even in the absence of the clerk, and 
 pick out what they like. Only once, the factor 
 told me, was this trust misplaced, and it was 
 
 175 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 only necessary to suggest that it might be the 
 rule in future to lock the store except when the 
 clerk was present. The square deal is ap- 
 preciated by civilized and savage alike. 
 
 When one thinks of the treachery and deceit 
 that have been practised by the whites in 
 America in their dealings with the Indians and 
 of the degradation and death wrought by the 
 white man's cupidity, his diseases and his 
 whiskey, one can not but be filled with shame 
 and remorse, that this, the noblest race of 
 primitive men, should have been treated so 
 vilely. The unusually fine character of the 
 unspoiled Indian we are discovering when it is 
 too late, although Catlin pointed it out long 
 ago, and for many years the inhuman saying 
 has been flippantly repeated that there is "No 
 good Indian but a dead one." 
 
 In former times the Indians coming from the 
 interior erected their wigwams at Mingan near 
 the trading post. Hind says. " Four hundred 
 Montagnais had pitched their tents at Mingan, 
 a fortnight before we arrived, there to dispose 
 of their furs, the produce of the preceding 
 winter's hunt, and to join in the religious 
 ceremonies of the Roman Catholic . church 
 
 176 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 under the ministration of Pere Arnaud." 
 This was in July, 1861. In 1889 the Hudson's 
 Bay Company, in order to make the place as 
 attractive as possible for the Indians, and as 
 an inducement to bring their furs to this Post, 
 built a small wooden house for the Indians and 
 another three years later. These proved so 
 attractive that the rest of the village was put 
 up, we were told, in the years 1901 to 1903. 
 However successful these houses may have 
 been in stimulating trade, the effect on the 
 health of the Indians has proved far otherwise. 
 Infectious diseases, such as influenza and 
 tuberculosis, were unknown among the primi- 
 tive Indians, who have therefore developed no 
 immunity, but, on the contrary, are especially 
 susceptible to them and quickly succumb. 
 When infected from the whites, they retire, 
 like all ignorant people under the same cir- 
 cumstances, to their houses, and crowd to- 
 gether in close overheated rooms with doors and 
 windows shut. The houses become therefore 
 hotbeds of infection, and the course of the 
 disease is hastened to a fatal termination. 
 
 Hind, writing of his visit in 1861, records 
 the fact that the Indians who lingered on the 
 
 177 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 coast soon lost their energy and bodily strength 
 and became prone to attacks of influenza, 
 consumption and rheumatism. He speaks of 
 a party of fifteen Nascaupees who had visited 
 the coast at Seven Islands two years before, 
 to see the robe noir. Seven of these had died, 
 four had gone back to their own wilds, and, of 
 the four that remained, all were very weak 
 and one died while he was there. Hind at- 
 tributed the illness and deaths on the coast 
 to the unaccustomed climate, not recognizing 
 the true cause of infection from the whites. 
 But on the coast, he says, " the damp pene- 
 trates to his bones; he sits shivering over a 
 smoky fire, loses heart, and sinks under the 
 repeated attacks of influenza brought on by 
 changes in the temperature." 
 
 When my profession was discovered by the 
 Indians, I was in frequent demand, and was 
 asked to prescribe for several patients whom I 
 found to be far advanced in consumption. A 
 pleasanter case to remember was that of a 
 young Indian who told me that for two months 
 he could not see out of one of his eyes; it 
 caused him no pain whatever, and his only 
 regret was that he could see the girls only 
 
 178 
 
THE LAST LEAF ON THE TREE, SAID TO BE IO4 YEARS OLD. 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
 
 through one eye instead of two. My interpreter 
 for this gallant speech was one of the daughters 
 of the salmon-fisher. As there was some slight 
 redness of the eye, but more for the sake of 
 giving the Indian the satisfaction of treatment, 
 I presented him with some tablets for an eye 
 wash. A few days later he reported that he 
 had begun to see again in that eye ! 
 
 That some of these people manage to survive 
 the onslaught of the white man's germs of 
 disease and live to a considerable age, was 
 illustrated by an aged squaw at Mingan who 
 was said to be 104 years old. The factor, 
 Mr. Wilson, told me that up to within a few 
 years she had spent the long winters with her 
 people in the interior, but that increasing 
 infirmities had at last compelled her to give 
 up this strenuous life. She appeared to be 
 still active mentally, and her small black eyes 
 twinkled with intelligence in her sadly wizened 
 face. When she walked she was bent like a 
 bow, so that her chin almost touched her knees, 
 and she reminded me of some Cape Cod women 
 who are said never to die, but in the end to 
 dry up and blow away like dead leaves. 
 
 179 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 WINGS AND FEET IN THE AIR AND UNDER WATER 
 
 " Mark how the feathered tenants of the flood, 
 With grace of motion that might scarcely seem 
 Inferior to angelical, prolong 
 Their curious pastime! " 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 '"I" -V HE good priest at Esquimaux Point said 
 that the devout could see the sign of the 
 cross in the birds as they fly in the heavens. 
 Our ideas of the flying birds may indeed be 
 a conventional one, for their flight is generally 
 so rapid that our impressions are often con- 
 fused and incorrect unless our attention has 
 been particularly called to some point. Thus 
 in the case of the feet, artists and taxidermists 
 alike generally represent soaring doves and 
 eagles with their feet drawn up in front, and 
 even excellent observers, who have not paid 
 especial attention to the subject, are apt to 
 agree in the accuracy of this stereotyped and 
 conventional attitude. Now a little careful 
 
 180 
 
WINGS AND FEET 
 
 study of the familiar pigeon of our streets 
 shows that in the case of the dove this view is 
 an erroneous one. On rising from the ground 
 the pigeon draws up its feet in front, it is true, 
 but, as it gathers headway, the feet are drawn 
 back and extended under the tail. In this 
 position it soars or executes any flight more 
 than a few yards. When it flies but a short 
 distance it does not have time, or it does not 
 take the trouble, to draw up its feet behind, but 
 carries them in front to be ready to drop them 
 when it alights. In quick turns I have seen 
 them drop their feet a short distance from their 
 tail, and once I saw one drop its legs so that 
 they hung straight down for a few seconds, 
 and were then extended behind again. In 
 alighting the feet are thrown forward, generally 
 at the last moment. 
 
 In the case of the eagle and other birds of 
 prey the fact that the feet are carried behind 
 under the tail has been observed over and over 
 again, yet when this fact was announced in the 
 pages of the Ibis in 1894 and 1895 there was 
 at first a hint of protest, but numerous good 
 observers confirmed the statement. 
 
 When the new United States twenty dollar 
 
 181 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 gold piece appeared in 1907 with the design by 
 St. Gaudens of an eagle in flight, its legs behind, 
 objections were at once made. A writer in the 
 Boston Transcript said: " Whoever saw an 
 eagle in flight with its legs trailing behind it 
 like a heron? " thus voicing the popular and 
 conventional idea that the legs are carried in 
 front. Although I have seen many wild hawks 
 flying with their feet behind, sometimes trailing 
 them with a distinct gap between the tail and 
 the legs, for all the world like the St. Gaudens' 
 design, my most satisfactory views have been 
 those of ospreys at Bristol, Rhode Island, 
 where the birds are semi-domesticated, for 
 they build their nests on tall poles, erected for 
 their convenience in barn yards, and allow 
 inspection at close range. Here there can be 
 no question but that they carry the feet behind 
 in flight. 
 
 Owls also dispose of their legs in the same 
 manner as I have observed in a great horned 
 owl confined in a flying cage, and in a wild 
 barred owl seen flying about its nest. 
 
 The same habits exist among the pheasants, 
 grouse and partridges. I have not been able 
 to see the feet in the rapid flight of the ruffed 
 
 182 
 
WINGS AND FEET 
 
 grouse and bob-white, but in the introduced 
 ring pheasant I once watched a flock of young 
 birds in flight whose only partly grown tails 
 did not conceal the long legs of the birds that 
 extended backwards. In side views of the 
 splendid cock pheasants I have also seen the 
 legs extended behind. 
 
 In the case of the water birds that abound on 
 the Labrador coast it is easy to see that the 
 legs are carried behind, and this is the universal 
 habit among all groups of this order. The 
 puffin and sea pigeon with their brilliant scarlet 
 feet make it plain as to their position in flight. 
 The gulls habitually carry their feet behind, 
 and in quick turns generally drop their feet 
 pressed together, suggesting their use as a centre- 
 board, for, as in a centre-board boat, quick turns 
 with the board up are impossible, with it 
 down these turns become easy. Gulls have also 
 a habit of sometimes drawing up one or both 
 feet in front. Sometimes the feet carried 
 forward show plainly, at other times they are 
 buried all but the toes which appear as dark 
 nobs, and again they are entirely concealed in 
 the feathers of the breast so that the bird 
 appears to be destitute of feet. Birds with one 
 
 183 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 foot concealed in front and one carried behind 
 appear to have only one foot. It is possible 
 that the birds do this to keep the feet warm, 
 but I have observed the habit in mild weather. 
 
 The dexterity with which the herons manage 
 their ungainly legs, stretching them behind in 
 flight, is familiar to all. I once saw a great 
 blue heron attacked in mid-air from the rear 
 by a screaming tern. The heron was so startled 
 that it dropped for a moment its long legs, and 
 stretched out and around its snake-like neck. 
 It may be stated as a rule to which, as far as I 
 know, there are no exceptions, that all water 
 birds carry their feet behind in flight. 
 
 It is probable that parrots, cuckoos and 
 kingfishers all carry their feet behind, but very 
 few observations have been made in these 
 difficult cases. 
 
 In the woodpeckers the feet are I believe 
 carried in front, while instantaneous photo- 
 graphs of humming birds show that in hovering, 
 at least, the feet of this bird are also carried 
 in front. 
 
 In the great order of perching birds it would 
 seem natural that the feet should be carried 
 in front as they fly from place to place, so as 
 
 184 
 
WINGS AND FEET 
 
 to be ready to seize their perch, and as far as 
 I know this is always the case. The crow is our 
 largest common perching bird, but its black 
 colour of plumage and feet alike make it 
 difficult to observe the point in question. A 
 crow in rising on the wing often lets its feet 
 hang at first, and then draws them up in front 
 in an exceedingly leisurely manner. When 
 well under way the feet are close against the 
 breast, and are held there I am inclined to 
 believe, even in long flights, for I have several 
 times observed crows from a point on a sea 
 beach where I could follow their flight for a 
 long distance, and, as they passed me, their 
 feet were always in front. The feet are some- 
 times dropped slightly so that daylight can 
 be seen between them and the breast, or held 
 so closely to the breast that only the clenched 
 toes can be seen, and these in some cases are 
 entirely buried in the feathers. If the bird 
 had only been so obliging as to have white 
 feet, these observations would have been much 
 easier. 
 
 I have also seen the feet when the birds were 
 in full flight in the case of swallows, blackbirds, 
 robins, the familiar house sparrow of the 
 
 185 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 streets and in other perching birds, and they 
 were always held in front. 
 
 The modern study of birds by means of 
 powerful prismatic binoculars and occasionally 
 of telescopes reveals much that was concealed 
 from the students that depended on the naked 
 eye and the loaded gun, and those who were 
 brought up in the " collecting age," unless they 
 have fully adopted modern methods, are apt 
 to look with some suspicion on those who use 
 glasses. The student who leaves the gun at 
 home or keeps it judiciously in the background, 
 not only sees more with these glasses, but also 
 with the naked eye, for the birds soon recognize 
 the difference between the man with the gun 
 and the man with the glasses, and behave 
 accordingly, and this is a point that the old- 
 time student does not appreciate. For years 
 I never got nearer than a long gun-shot from 
 an adult turnstone and never observed him 
 for any length of time at that distance, but, 
 since adopting modern methods, I have spent 
 many interesting half-hours with these birds, 
 at times so close that I could not focus my 
 glasses on them, and have watched every detail 
 of their actions in turning over seaweed and 
 
 186 
 
WINGS AND FEET 
 
 stones. The case of the Ipswich sparrow, a 
 bird that breeds only at Sable Island and visits 
 the sandy Atlantic shores in winter, is a striking 
 illustration of the difference in the two methods. 
 Formerly ornithologists made visits to the sea- 
 shore dunes in late fall and early spring, and 
 considered themselves fortunate if they flushed 
 half a dozen of these birds at long range in a 
 day's tramp, and succeeded in shooting two 
 or three on the wing. Now the student watches 
 them within a few yards, and is able to note all 
 the peculiarities of markings and habits. I 
 have tried both methods and I know whereof 
 I speak. In a comparatively unexplored 
 region like Labrador, however, it is well to 
 have two strings to one's bow. 
 
 Being burdened somewhat with a New Eng- 
 land conscience, I am glad I began bird-study 
 before the days of hand-books and Audubon 
 societies, in the good old times when a gun was 
 used for identification, for I think that course 
 of study gives one a grounding that it is 
 difficult to get otherwise. Nowadays there is 
 no excuse for the beginner to use a gun, and 
 there is no need of multiplying collections of 
 bird-skins, but it should be impressed on all 
 187 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 bird-students and their name is legion, both 
 masculine and feminine that it is far better to 
 be silent or confess ignorance than to affirm 
 knowledge unless that knowledge is based on 
 sound observation. It is to be regretted that 
 too many ardent bird-students are not only 
 lacking in powers of observation and in ap- 
 preciation of the scientific value of truth, but 
 also that they possess imaginations which 
 lead them to see what the text-books have given 
 them to expect. Above all they should avoid 
 embarrassing ornithologists by recording in 
 print imperfect and erroneous observations, and 
 they should remember that by so doing they 
 discredit not only themselves but the whole class 
 of gunless observers. 
 
 Turn we now, as dear old Professor Shaler 
 used to say, to another subject. Instantaneous 
 photography shows that birds extend the 
 bastard wing just as they alight. The bastard 
 wing consists of a few stiff feathers attached to 
 the so-called thumb on the front edge of the 
 bird's wing. Ordinarily it lies flat and is not 
 seen, but just as the bird alights from a flight 
 it is extended so as to be partially detached 
 from the main wing. In the domestic pigeon 
 
 188 
 
WINGS AND FEET 
 
 I have often observed this with the naked eye, 
 although I hesitate to record this observation 
 for fear that someone who has been reading 
 Munsterberg will say that I merely visualized 
 what the photograph made me expect to see. 
 It is an observation, however, that any one 
 can make whose eyesight is ordinarily good. A 
 bird comes sailing down from a roof, and, as it 
 approaches the ground, the bastard wing 
 becomes distinctly prominent, the whole wings 
 are then flapped rapidly, during which it is 
 impossible to observe them distinctly, and the 
 bird drops to its feet. The natural explanation 
 of this action of the bastard wing is that it is 
 used to check the progress of the bird, to back 
 water so to speak, but the bastard wing is so 
 small that its power in this direction must be 
 extremely slight. One might suggest, therefore, 
 that the present bastard wing is but a vestige 
 of its former self, and dates back to a time 
 when its use was of value, or, to go back still 
 farther in the family tree, one might suppose, 
 perhaps fancifully, that the bird thus puts out 
 its thumb as did its reptilian ancestors to 
 grasp the perch to which it is speeding. 
 
 The Labrador coast is a good place to study 
 189 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 diving birds, for there are many and of numerous 
 kinds to be found there. It is evident that these 
 birds may be divided into two main classes, 
 those that habitually use the wings alone under 
 water, and those that use the feet alone. 
 Those that use the wings make ready before 
 they disappear below the surface by spreading 
 or flopping them out, while the feet-users keep 
 the wings tightly clapped to the sides, and they 
 often execute graceful curves in diving, some- 
 times leaping clear of the water. 
 
 The puffin is a good example of the former 
 class, and its wings are plainly to be seen in 
 vigorous use as it goes under water, and it often 
 comes out of the waves flying, only to return 
 to the denser element again with the same 
 method of propulsion. All the other members 
 of the auk family dive in the same way. I 
 have twice had excellent opportunities to watch 
 dovkies or little auks swimming close at hand 
 under water, and plainly saw them use their 
 wings. The great auk, long since extinct, with 
 wings reduced to flipper-like proportions, doubt- 
 less advanced rapidly through the water by 
 the action of these extremities only, for the feet 
 in the living members of this group are not 
 190 
 
ESCORT AMONG THE INDIANS AT MINGAN. 
 
WINGS AND FEET 
 
 used for propulsion under water. The penguins, 
 although entirely distinct from the auks, fly 
 through the water with their extended flipper- 
 like wings, and, from the testimony of those 
 who have watched them in tanks, it is learned 
 that the feet are not used. Thus Lea x says of 
 these curious birds: "Their flight may be 
 watched and studied in the large glass tanks 
 at the Zoo. . . . With short, rapid strokes of 
 its paddle wings it darts through the water 
 leaving a trail of glistening bubbles behind, 
 and shoots forward with the speed of a fish, turn- 
 ing more rapidly than almost any bird of the 
 air by the strokes of the wing alone, the legs 
 floating apparently inert in a line with the 
 gleaming body, or giving an occasional upward 
 kick to force it to greater depths." 
 
 One is apt to assume that " the trail of 
 glistening bubbles " which comes from a diving 
 bird are the expired air bubbles, but I am 
 inclined to think that most if not all of this 
 air is expelled from the feathers in order to 
 make diving more easy or even possible. Some 
 diving birds have the ability to sink gradually 
 out of sight in the water with apparently little 
 
 1 John Lea, The Romance of Bird Life, 1909, pp. 202-203. 
 191 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 or no muscular effort, yet these same birds 
 shot on the wing float on the surface when dead 
 as lightly as feathers. Each body feather is 
 governed by tiny muscles, and by their action 
 the feathers can be depressed so that the large 
 amount of air normally held between them is 
 expelled, and the body loses its buoyancy. I 
 was interested to try the experiment on a 
 recently killed eider on this trip on the Labrador 
 coast, and found that while the dead body 
 floated high in the water, by expelling the air 
 from the feathers and replacing it with water 
 the bird sank so deeply that only a small 
 fraction appeared above the surface. This 
 simple experiment, therefore, explains the other- 
 wise mysterious power of some water birds to 
 sink in the water without apparent leg or wing 
 action. After rising to the surface from diving, 
 birds usually shake themselves as if to admit 
 air to their feathers. 
 
 Among the ducks, old squaws, scoters, and 
 eiders, all common Labrador birds, plainly use 
 their wings in diving. Once, while watching some 
 old squaws sporting in the water and chasing each 
 other on or just below the surface, I distinctly 
 saw the wing of one of them cut the water from 
 
 192 
 
WINGS AND FEET 
 
 below like the fin of a great fish, and I have 
 seen a surf scoter near at hand fly under water. 
 It is a curious thing, when one stops to think 
 of it, that some species of ducks like those 
 named above should vigorously fly under 
 water, while other ducks should keep their 
 wings close to their sides and shoot about 
 under water by the action of their feet alone, 
 yet this seems to be the case. The redhead and 
 the canvas back, the scaups, the whistler or 
 golden-eye and the bufflehead all seem to dis- 
 regard their wings under water and use the 
 feet alone. This is also true of the mergansers, 
 who always dive with the wings pressed closely 
 to the sides. Edmund Selous, who has watched 
 water birds from vantage points on the cliffs 
 of the Shetland Islands, says: " The merganser 
 dives like the shag or cormorant though the 
 curved leap is a little less vigorous and swims 
 like them, without using the wings. His food 
 being fish, he usually swims horizontally, 
 sometimes only just beneath the surface, and, 
 as he comes right into the shallow inlets, where 
 the water almost laps the shore, he can often 
 be watched thus gliding in rapid pursuit." ' 
 
 a Bird Watching, London, 1901, p. 153. 
 193 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 The group of river ducks, on the other hand, 
 which includes the teals, mallard, black duck 
 and wood duck, are not skilled in diving but 
 obtain their food by dipping their heads and 
 necks below the surface, while their tails point 
 to the zenith in the ardour of the pursuit. 
 These birds as well as geese and brant do, 
 however, occasionally dive in an awkward 
 manner, and in so doing use both feet and 
 wings. 
 
 The family of the loons and grebes is a curious 
 one and its members are characterized by 
 possessing very muscular legs, the thighs short 
 and stout, the lower legs long and provided with 
 keels for the attachment of powerful muscles. 
 The grebes have also a very large knee-cap. 
 In these respects ihe group resembles the fossil 
 Hesperornis, a toothed bird with wings repre- 
 sented by mere vestiges, but one that was 
 evidently strongly specialized for propulsion 
 through the water by means of the feet alone. 
 Now loons and grebes are expert divers, and, 
 although they occasionally have been seen to 
 use the wings when hard pressed, as a rule they 
 appear to swim, and that too very rapidly, 
 under water with the feet alone. Young loons, 
 
 194 
 
WINGS AND FEET 
 
 however, scramble away tinder water, using 
 both feet and wings. 
 
 Cormorants are famed for their ability to 
 swim under water with great swiftness, and 
 domesticated ones are used at the present day 
 by the Chinese as catchers of fish, while a ring 
 around the neck prevents the bird from profiting 
 by its labours. Both when confined in tanks 
 and wild in the sea this curious bird uses its 
 feet alone for propulsion. Selous * says of 
 these birds: " Others, whose young were still 
 with them on the nest, although full fledged 
 and almost as big as themselves, plunged, 
 attended by these into the water. ... It 
 was easy to follow these birds as they swam 
 midway between the surface of the water and 
 the white pebbled floor of the cavern, and I 
 am thus able to confirm my previous con- 
 viction that the feet alone are used by them in 
 swimming, without any help from the wings, 
 which are kept all the while closed." The 
 American coot or mud-hen, a bird of the 
 rail family, is a graceful diver, and, like the 
 cormorant, it keeps its wings close to the 
 
 *The bird Watcher in the Shetlands. London. 1905. 
 P. 50. 
 
 195 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 body. Selous, 1 however, says of the English 
 moorhen, another rail, that he " may follow no 
 fixed plan in his diving, for I have certainly 
 seen him using his feet only under water, and 
 I believe I have also seen him using his wings." 
 
 Very young spotted sandpipers, the familiar 
 teter-tail of beaches fresh and salt, sometimes 
 dive when hard pressed, and in so doing use 
 both wings and feet. The water ousel uses both 
 wings and feet under water. 
 
 It would seem, therefore, that with a few 
 exceptions diving birds tend to specialize in 
 two directions, either towards the use of 
 the feet alone, or of the wings alone. The 
 question naturally arises as to which line is 
 superior, which has produced the swiftest 
 diving bird, the line that has led to the 
 use of the feet alone or that which has led to 
 the use of the wings alone? It is evident that 
 a method of diving which leaves the wings 
 unimpaired in size or form for the use in the 
 air is a desirable one, and that this is possible 
 where the feet alone are used. In most fishes 
 propulsion is from the rear by means of the 
 tail, for the pectoral fins, which correspond to 
 
 1 Bird Watching. London, 1901, p. 156. 
 196 
 
PIERRE OF PIASHTE-BAI AND THE BEAVER, SHOWING WEBBED 
 HIND FOOT OF THE BEAVER, AND " SKIN BOOTS " OF MAN. 
 
WINGS AND FEET 
 
 the birds' wings, are used chiefly for balancing, 
 and when the fish swims fast these fins are 
 kept close to the sides. Among mammals the 
 cetaceans have developed greatest speed in 
 diving and swimming under water, and here 
 also the tail is the propulsive power, while the 
 anterior extremities are used chiefly for balanc- 
 ing. The beaver, with its posterior extremities 
 alone webbed, uses these only in swimming 
 under water. The modern screw-propeller is 
 superior to the old side-wheeler. 
 
 In hesperornis the wing is a mere vestige, 
 but the leg bones are of great strength. It is 
 evident that hesperornis pursued its prey under 
 water by means of the feet alone, and that 
 through many generations it had gradually 
 lost the use of the wings, which must have 
 been, therefore, a hindrance rather than a 
 help in its subaqueous flight. It had long since 
 given up aerial flight. Loons and grebes, how- 
 ever, although apparently allied to hesperornis, 
 do at times, as we have seen, use their wings in 
 addition to their feet under water, yet it seems 
 to me probable from the evidence adduced that 
 as a rule they progress by the feet alone. The 
 young appear to use the wings as well as the 
 197 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 feet habitually. These facts would seem to 
 indicate that the method of posterior propulsion 
 in loons and grebes has not been long developed 
 nor permanently fixed, and that the young 
 show the ancestral or primitive form of loco- 
 motion. The close resemblance in the legs of 
 the loons and grebes on the one hand, and 
 hesperornis on the other, would suggest either 
 a case of parallelism from similar functions, or 
 that they were all descended from the same 
 stock. In the " Birds of Essex County " ' I 
 spoke of the loon as " approaching the wingless 
 conditions." The present studies would, how- 
 ever, lead me to believe that the loon, in per- 
 fecting the method of posterior propulsion 
 under water, has no need to reduce the size of 
 its wings for use there. It can, however, with 
 advantage increase their size, provided it does 
 not use them under water, for the wings are 
 now so small that on calm days it is unable to 
 rise into the air. 
 
 Cormorants on the other hand have for so 
 long a time perfected the posterior propulsion 
 method that they do not use the wings under 
 water even apparently when young. In con- 
 
 1 Birds of Essex County, Cambridge, 1905, p. 80. 
 198 
 
WINGS AND FEET 
 
 sequence they have been able to retain large 
 wings for aerial flight. That they can develop 
 great speed under water and are very expert 
 fish-catchers is well known. 
 
 The other line of e-volution, the subaqueous 
 flight by anterior propulsion, or by the use of 
 the wings alone, reaches its height in the 
 penguins, and probably in the extinct great 
 auk, two birds widely separated genetically 
 but converging to the same result in this par- 
 ticular. Both birds in developing speed under 
 water by the use of the wings, reduced them 
 in size to the proportions of seal's flippers, 
 most markedly so in the case of the penguins, 
 thereby showing that large wings are not only 
 unnecessary, but even a hindrance in suba- 
 queous flight. In attaining this end they were 
 obliged to sacrifice aerial flight. This the 
 penguins were able to do owing to the absence 
 of land mammals in their antarctic breeding 
 grounds. The same conditions existed for the 
 greak auk at its chief breeding place in this 
 country on Funk Island, until the arrival of 
 that most destructive land mammal, the white 
 man. 
 
 The diving petrel of the Straits of Magellan 
 199 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 is a bird that appears to be in danger of sacri- 
 ficing aerial for subaqueous flight, and illus- 
 trates the inconveniences of this line of evolu- 
 tion. Nichol * says of this bird, after describing 
 its short flights in the air and its diving: " In 
 appearance it reminds one forcibly of the little 
 auk. . . . The wings are very small and weak, 
 the bird, doubtless, is losing the power of 
 flight." 
 
 In the case of the existing auks and of the 
 other birds that habitually use the wings alone 
 in diving, it would be interesting to determine 
 whether they are able to progress under water 
 as fast as those birds that use the feet alone, 
 for the auks are trying to make the same tool 
 work for two purposes, to propel them in the 
 air as well as in the water. One is impressed 
 with the imperfection of their wings for both 
 purposes, when one watches a puffin en- 
 deavouring to get out of the way of a steamer. 
 First the bird dives and flies under \\ater. 
 Then in alarm it rises to the surface and at- 
 tempts to ascend into the air on its wings, but 
 unless there is a strong wind to act on its small 
 aeroplanes, it soon gives up the attempt and 
 
 1 Three Voyages of a Naturalist, London, 1908, p. 160. 
 200 
 
WINGS AND FEET 
 
 / 
 
 flops down into the water again. Although it 
 would be difficult to prove, it would seem to me 
 reasonable to suppose that the compressed 
 pointed body of the loon, with the air expelled 
 from beneath the flattened feathers, would 
 make faster progress by feet action alone, than 
 by the wings or by the wings and feet com- 
 bined, unless the wings were reduced to the 
 proportions of flippers. It is possible that the 
 occasional use of the wings observed in these 
 birds may be explained by fright, which causes 
 them to " lose their heads," and return to the 
 ancestral form of progression, to a reptilian 
 scramble so to speak, without increasing the 
 speed of their progress. It could also be argued 
 that the wings of loons are now so reduced in 
 size that their use in emergencies under water is 
 a help and not a hindrance. Experiments on cap- 
 tive birds in tanks might determine these facts. 1 
 
 persistent but futile efforts of the loons to rise 
 from the water in flight during a calm on the approach of 
 the steamer as described in the second chapter is, it seems 
 to me, another illustration of the return to primitive 
 methods during extreme fright. Aerial flight was doubt- 
 less practised by the ancestors of the loons long before 
 subaqueous flight, and in subaqueous flight it is reasonable 
 to suppose that quadrupedal action antedated that of the 
 feet alone. 
 
 201 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 That loons are able to progress faster under 
 water than on the surface I have concluded 
 from such observations as the following: ' 
 " Thus on one occasion I was watching a loon 
 swimming about, dipping his head under 
 water from time to time on the lookout for 
 food. The cry of another loon was heard at 
 a distance and my friend immediately dove 
 in the direction of the other, and, appearing 
 on the surface for a moment, dove again and 
 again until he reached his companion. At 
 another time on the Maine coast while watching 
 a flock of young Red-breasted Mergansers 
 swimming off the shore, I noticed a movement 
 as of a large fish on the water outside. The 
 mergansers at once flapped in alarm along the 
 surface of the water towards the shore where 
 I was hidden, and I soon saw that a loon was 
 chasing them, following them under water." 
 Theoretically a loon should be able to go faster 
 under water than on the surface, for on the 
 surface the bird is retarded by the waves in 
 front and the eddies behind, and the faster it 
 goes the more it is retarded by these factors. 
 The subject of the resistance of submerged 
 
 1 Birds of Essex County, 1905, p. 80. 
 202 
 
WINGS AND FEET 
 
 bodies has been exhaustively studied by naval 
 architects, and it has been shown that a prop- 
 erly shaped body completely submerged under 
 ideal circumstances with the wave eliminated 
 meets with little resistance besides friction. 
 The fact that a loon when swimming rapidly 
 on the surface is apt to depress its body in the 
 water so that its back is awash seems to favour 
 this contention. It may be argued that the 
 bird does this to avoid observation or to escape 
 being shot, but it certainly swims faster when 
 thus submerged. Under water the diving bird 
 has a great advantage in being able to assume 
 a shape best adapted to cleaving the liquid 
 medium. 
 
 Incidentally it may be remarked that the 
 loon, in perfecting its legs for use under water, 
 has disabled itself for walking on the land, 
 but as it usually builds its nest on or close to 
 the water, it can well afford to sacrifice ter- 
 restrial locomotion. 
 
 The combined use of wings and feet, a 
 reptilian form of progression, would naturally 
 be found among birds that had not fully 
 specialized in either direction. Among living 
 birds the cormorant and the penguin represent 
 203 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 the extremes of specialization for the posterior 
 and anterior extremity respectively. Where 
 either habit is not firmly established we should 
 expect at times a return to the primitive 
 method, and we should expect to find it in 
 young birds. This is well shown in the case 
 of the loon. We should expect to find it at 
 all times in behinners in the art of diving, i.e., 
 among birds whose ancestry in the diving line 
 is not a long one. The mallard, the black duck, 
 the moorhen, the spotted sand piper and the 
 water ouzel may perhaps illustrate this con- 
 tention. 
 
 In conclusion the following tentative in- 
 ferences from these preliminary studies on 
 diving birds may be set down. 
 
 i st. That progression by both the wings and 
 feet under water in diving birds is the primitive 
 method, and is therefore to be looked for 
 among beginners and young birds. 
 
 2d. That specialization towards the use of 
 the wings alone leads to a diminution in the 
 size of the wings, and finally to a form of bird 
 that is flightless in the air; for wings of flipper 
 proportions, too small for aerial flight, are 
 more efficient than large wings for subaqueous 
 
 204 
 
DWARFED SPRUCES DEAD AND ALIVE AT ESQUIMAUX ISLAND. 
 
 ANCIENT LARCH AT QUATACHOO. 
 
WINGS AND FEET 
 
 flight, as witness the great auk and pen- 
 guins. 
 
 3d. That specialization towards the use of 
 the feet alone is probably best adapted for the 
 most rapid progression under water, and this 
 method may leave the wings undiminished in 
 size for use in the air. The apparent exception, 
 hesperornis, with powerful feet but with wings 
 degenerated to vestiges through disuse, serves 
 but to confirm the inference of the superiority 
 under water of feet action alone. 
 
 205 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 SOME LABRADOR TREES 
 
 " Arbores magnae diu crescunt; 
 Una hora extirpantur." 
 
 Curtius. 
 
 T^NOS A. MILLS 1 has recently described 
 "^ the incidents in the life of a giant yellow 
 pine, in the stump of which he counted 1047 
 rings. From this he concluded that the year 
 of the great tree's birth was somewhere in 
 the ninth century after Christ. A long and 
 careful dissection and study of the fallen 
 monarch that in life had attained a height of 
 over a hundred and fifteen feet, and a trunk 
 eight feet in diameter, revealed many secrets. 
 The rings showed seasons of drought or cold, 
 periods of prosperity and again of stress and 
 injury. Lightning and fire left their indelible 
 marks, as well as the effect of heavy winter 
 snows; two imprisoned stone arrow heads and 
 
 1 Wild Life on the Rockies. Boston, 1909, p. 31. 
 206 
 
SOME LABRADOR TREES 
 
 some rifle bullets suggested interesting inci- 
 dents, and an imbedded stone on the cliff side 
 of the tree together with fractures of roots that 
 had occurred in the year 1811 or 1812 suggested 
 an earthquake. 
 
 Nothing of this spectacular sort did I find in 
 my study of Labrador trees, but I had deter- 
 mined on this trip to make as many sections 
 of the trees as I could, and I had brought a 
 saw for the purpose, because in my previous 
 visit to Labrador I had cut down and sectioned 
 a few of the dwarf specimens with the best 
 instrument I then had, a sheath knife, and 
 found they were all tough and some of them 
 were surprisingly old and interesting. Thus: 
 " A little larch that had successfully risen to 
 the great height of nine inches in a gully, I 
 found on sectioning and counting the rings 
 with a pocket lens to be thirty-two years old. 
 The massive trunk was three-eighths of an inch 
 in diameter. A balsam fir with a spread of 
 branches of twenty-seven inches, whose top- 
 most twig was thirteen inches from the ground, 
 showed fifty-four rings in a massive trunk two 
 inches in diameter. Another balsam fir nine 
 inches high and twenty-one inches in extent 
 
 207 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 showed thirty-five rings in a trunk one inch and 
 a quarter in diameter. A black spruce eleven 
 inches tall and twenty-two in extent, with a 
 trunk only one inch in diameter, had lived over 
 half a century, showing fifty-two rings in its 
 cross section. The sturdy little veteran wreaked 
 his vengeance on me by making a great nick in 
 the sheath-knife with which I laboured to 
 dissect him and learn his secrets." x 
 
 In this Labrador spring I counted the rings 
 on the large stumps and in some of the smaller 
 ones on the spot, but most of my studies are 
 from sections that I cut and labelled, and 
 afterwards studied at home, for the Labrador 
 spring is so short. When the tree has grown 
 rapidly the rings are wide and easily counted 
 by the naked eye, but in most of the stunted 
 Labrador trees the growth is so slow that a 
 strong hand lens is necessary, and in some of 
 the smaller, much stunted ones I made the 
 sections with a razor, mounted them in a 
 drop of oil, and counted the rings with the low 
 power of a compound microscope. I found 
 that careful smoothing of the section with a 
 razor or sharp knife and oiling it brought 
 
 1 Along the Labrador Coast. Boston, 1907, pp. 43-44. 
 208 
 
SOME LABRADOR TREES 
 
 out the rings more plainly and it was often 
 possible by shifting around the circle to count 
 the full number of rings, when in a direct line 
 to the periphery from the centre, portions of 
 the rings might be illegible. Pins used in the 
 larger sections to mark off various points in 
 the counting were also of help. Most of the 
 sections were counted two or more times and 
 an average struck in case of disagreement, so 
 that I believe my counts are fairly accurate. 
 
 I made in this way an examination of twenty- 
 six trees, larches, balsam firs, and black and 
 white spruces that varied in height from one 
 and a half inches to fifty-five feet. The most 
 stunted specimens, the ones that grew the 
 slowest and were least in height, were to be 
 found on the sea-shore and in the bogs. Be- 
 yond the Mingan Islands the shore and par- 
 ticularly the islands took on a more arctic 
 appearance, and, in places exposed to the full 
 fury of the wind, the trees were prone on the 
 ground, although, even as far east as Natash- 
 quan, trees of twenty feet in height were found 
 close to the shore in fairly protected places. 
 The bogs, with their deep sphagnum moss and 
 acid waters, their underlying ice even in June, 
 
 209 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 and their exposure to the full fury of all the 
 winds that blew, appeared to be particularly 
 difficult places for the growth of trees, yet it 
 was evident that it was only by the slow growth 
 through many years of these trees and bushes 
 that the bog was consolidated and became fitted 
 for the support of a large growth. The forest 
 works in from the sides and extends in islands, 
 so gradually that centuries must elapse before 
 the progress is even noticeable. The truth of 
 this statement is made probable by the follow- 
 ing observations on trees of the bogs. Thus 
 in one of the bogs on top of Esquimaux Island, 
 a balsam fir whose trunk was three-quarters of 
 an inch in diameter, whose height was twelve 
 inches and the extent of whose branches was 
 twenty-four inches showed by its rings a 
 struggle of twenty-four years. A black spruce 
 six inches high with a trunk one and one-half 
 inches in diameter was fifty- three years old. 
 Another black spruce nine inches high and 
 one-half an inch in diameter was sixty-two 
 years old. 
 
 Larches are common enough in the bogs, but 
 one must look carefully in order to pick up a 
 little tree with a trunk one-eighth of an inch 
 
 210 
 
LARCH TREE SIXTEEN YEARS OLD, FROM BOG AT ESQUIMAUX 
 ISLAND' SLIGHTLY ENLARGED. 
 
 PHOTOMICROGRAPH OF SECTION OF TRUNK SHOWING 
 
 SIXTEEN ANNUAL RINGS. 
 Photographs by Prof. E. C. Jeffrey and Mr. E. W. Sinnott. 
 
SOME LABRADOR TREES 
 
 thick, a height of one and one- half inches and 
 a spread of branches two inches across. Yet 
 this was not a seedling, for sixteen years as 
 shown by its rings under a powerful micro- 
 scope had passed over its head. It seemed 
 cruel to pluck up such a tree after it had been 
 so well started in life, and tuck it into one's vest 
 pocket. The other larches, and there were ten 
 of them, that I measured, sectioned and 
 counted from the bogs of Esquimaux Island 
 gave the following figures: 
 
 Height 
 of 
 tree. 
 
 Extent 
 of 
 branches. 
 
 Diameter 
 of 
 trunk. 
 
 Rings. 
 
 12 inches 
 
 38 inches 
 
 2 inches 
 
 55 
 
 3* " 
 
 8 
 
 I " 
 
 42 
 
 6 
 
 30 " 
 
 f " 
 
 43 
 
 5 " 
 
 8 
 
 I " 
 
 31 
 
 12 " 
 
 24 
 
 * " 
 
 45 
 
 
 
 * " 
 
 38 
 
 2 
 
 2 " 
 
 * " 
 
 8 
 
 3 " 
 
 4 " 
 
 i 
 
 1 9 
 
 2 " 
 
 3 " 
 
 A " 
 
 10 
 
 6 " 
 
 18 
 
 * ." 
 
 40 
 
 The lack of uniformity in growth is of course due 
 to the many and complicated problems of 
 
 211 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 environment, for no two of these trees were 
 exposed to exactly the same conditions of 
 sunlight, wind, depth of snow, soil, amount of 
 water, etc. 
 
 A larch that grew on the wind swept islands 
 of Quatachoo, that was twenty inches tall 
 and forty-five in extent, with a trunk one and 
 one-half inches in diameter, had taken twenty 
 years to grow. Another larch exposed to the 
 winds of Esquimaux Island for one hundred and 
 ten years had attained a height of three feet, 
 a spread of eleven feet and trunk some two 
 inches in diameter; and after all these years 
 of struggle it was cut down by a traveller, but 
 I trust its memory will long remain green. 
 The only other larch I measured was a giant 
 in a sheltered valley of an island of Quatachoo, 
 and I scaled a steep rocky cliff by the shore 
 and waded through a snow bank to my waist 
 on the 2pth of May to take his photograph. 
 A robin and a white-throat sang in this shel- 
 tered valley while the surf thundered on the 
 outer shore, and scuds of sea-fog drove over 
 head, and in the stunted spruces close to the 
 snow bank on the upper slopes a white-crowned 
 sparrow, the aristocrat of his tribe, sang his 
 
 212 
 
SOME LABRADOR TREES 
 
 mournful song. The valley was picturesque 
 in its rugged beauty and full of deep interest. 
 This larch was the largest in a group of gnarled 
 and twisted monarchs that must have defied 
 the storms for many ages. He was still alive 
 and the green buds of promise were appear- 
 ing on his topmost boughs, which were fully 
 thirty feet up in the air. At a distance of 
 two and a half feet from the ground he meas- 
 ured six feet in circumference. How I should 
 have enjoyed counting his rings, which must 
 have numbered many hundreds, but even if it 
 had been possible to cut him down and smooth 
 off his stump it would have been indeed sac- 
 rilegious. May he live for many ages yet to 
 come! 
 
 On this same island, however, I did steel my 
 heart and cut down a splendid spreading mat 
 of verdure, a balsam fir that had grown com- 
 paratively rapidly on a southern slope, but 
 one that was so exposed to the gales from the 
 gulf that it had reached a height of but three 
 feet. One could walk over its compact top sur- 
 face, which measured eighteen feet from side to 
 side, but could not rest under the shadow of its 
 branches unless one had been able to burrow 
 
 213 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 into the ground like a fox, or flatten oneself 
 out like paper. The trunk was four inches 
 in diameter and contained sixty-seven rings. 
 
 A balsam fir fifteen feet high and two and 
 one-half inches in diameter had grown rather 
 rapidly for nineteen years, then very slowly 
 for fifty-four years, and rapidly again for the 
 last six. One might infer that its neighbours, 
 starting at about the same time, so surpassed 
 it when it was nineteen years old, that for 
 over fifty years the lessened sun-light made its 
 growth slow and painful, but that six years ago 
 a storm had laid so many of its companions low 
 that it plucked up heart in the renewed sun- 
 light and grew like a sapling again, only to 
 be slain in its lusty seventy-ninth year by man 
 the destroyer. And for what purpose? To 
 count its rings forsooth! 
 
 The stump of a favoured balsam fir at Es- 
 quimaux Point that I examined showed twenty- 
 one rings in a diameter of four and one-half 
 inches. Its early life, however, had been rather 
 difficult, for at the end of fifteen years it had 
 reached a diameter of only an inch. Another 
 balsam fir at Mingan had a diameter of trunk 
 of eight inches, and had grown to be over thirty 
 
 214 
 
SOME LABRADOR TREES 
 
 feet in height in nearly a century, for I counted 
 ninety-seven rings. Conditions were favourable 
 for the first fifty years, but during the last 
 forty-seven only a very little additional growth 
 in girth was attained. 
 
 A black spruce at Esquimaux Island, grow- 
 ing with a multitude of others in close compe- 
 tition for sun and air, attained a height of ten 
 feet and a diameter of trunk of two inches in 
 fifty-six years. In its early youth, its first 
 forty years, it reached a diameter of only 
 five-eighths of an inch. Another black spruce 
 on the same island, one that had to contend 
 on the shore with the winds of the gulf, ex- 
 tended over six feet of ground, but grew to 
 a height of only thirty- two inches. Its trunk 
 was sturdy, three and three-quarters of an inch 
 in diameter, and it contained seventy-seven 
 rings. I counted two large black spruce stumps 
 at Mingan ; the first was in a thicket close to the 
 tree containing the pigeon hawks' nest, and 
 had been, if as tall as that tree, about forty-five 
 feet high. There were 121 rings in a circumfer- 
 ence of thirty-nine inches, eighteen inches from 
 the ground; about half the growth took place 
 in the first forty years, after this progress was 
 215 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 slow. The other tree was on the edge of the 
 forest close to a marsh, where conditions for 
 growth were so favourable that it had attained 
 a diameter of fifty-eight inches in ninety-nine 
 years. 
 
 A white spruce stump close to the house at 
 Mingan with a circumference of seventy inches 
 two feet from the ground had lived 132 years; 
 there were thirty-seven rings in the last inch. 
 Another, a veteran, that had been cut down 
 twenty inches from the ground on Mingan 
 Island and left where it fell, had been fifty-five 
 feet tall. Its stump sixty-five inches in circum- 
 ference and eighteen inches in diameter was 
 sound to the very centre, and showed 226 rings. 
 Between its 5oth and iSoth years it had grown 
 with uniform rapidity, as the rings were broad, 
 but after that its growth was slow, and in the 
 last three-fourths inch of its circumference it 
 showed forty-six rings. If we suppose the tree 
 had been cut down within a year, it must have 
 begun life in the year 1683, or only three years 
 after the founding of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
 pany. 
 
 The distinction between the three different 
 species of spruces is at times confusing. The 
 
 216 
 
SOME LABRADOR TREES 
 
 thick, sturdy yellowish green needles of the 
 red spruce, the slender, more delicate blueish- 
 black foliage of the black spruce, and the hand- 
 some blue green branches of the white spruce 
 are generally recognizable at a glance. One 
 recognizes one's friends, however, not by noting 
 that their eyes are black or blue, their noses 
 are aquiline or otherwise, but by their general 
 appearance, their distinctive air, by an in- 
 tangible something one would be at a loss to 
 define. I have known two brothers, one with 
 black eyes, the other with blue, one with a 
 beard, the other beardless, yet with a such 
 strong family likeness to each other that they 
 have been mistaken at a distance. The orni- 
 thologist often recognizes birds by little traits 
 that are unknown to the beginner, who is 
 slowly mastering the recognized field marks 
 of the books. The former knows a blue-bird 
 in the dusk when the blue back and the red 
 breast look all of one colour. In the same way 
 the master of the subject of trees can often tell 
 at a glance the species, although he may not 
 be conscious of the steps by which he arrived 
 at his diagnosis. To an amateur this is a con- 
 summation devoutly to be hoped for, and in the 
 217 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 case of the spruces, I am endeavouring to hasten 
 the process of familiarity by planting one of 
 each species within a few yards of my country 
 house, so that I can watch them grow and be- 
 come intimate with every stage in their prog- 
 ress. With the same idea I have planted what 
 I have fondly called my forest where I have 
 devoted an acre of land to New England trees 
 only, no foreign intruders are allowed. Here 
 some fifty different species and many individuals 
 are growing up. Only a few years ago one had 
 to take care not to step on the forest in the 
 grass, and my forest was the joke of my friends, 
 but now the trees are rapidly extending above 
 my head, and the birds of the air delight to 
 lodge in their branches, for after all the birds 
 are at the bottom of this scheme, but inci- 
 dentally I am learning much of trees. Until 
 one is perfectly familiar with the general 
 habit, the intangible family air of the different 
 species, it is a good plan to learn some special 
 field marks. The long cones of the white 
 spruce are of course distinctive. In the red 
 and black spruces the. cones look much alike, but 
 in one species the cones generally fall off every 
 year, in the other they persist for years. I have 
 218 
 
SOME LABRADOR TREES 
 
 been confused like the old lady and her indigo 
 as to these cones until I invented the very simple 
 mnemonic : black bind, red reject their cones. 
 Labrador trees could tell some very inter- 
 esting stories if they could only talk, but they 
 teach one lesson at least, that one cannot judge 
 of age by size, looks are indeed deceptive. 
 
 219 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 " Les rivieres sont des chemins qui marchent." 
 
 Pascal. 
 
 'TTVHE Labrador Peninsula, like a mighty 
 * sponge, holds much water in its meshes, 
 frozen into flinty ice it is true during the greater 
 part of the year, but abundantly fluid during 
 the brief summer season. As one cruises along 
 the southern coast line in spring, one passes a 
 series of watercourses large and small, each 
 bearing out into the green waters of the Gulf 
 its dark brown floods laden with tree trunks 
 and evergreen branches. Even at a distance 
 of two or three miles from shore, the less dense 
 fresh water is often distinct from the heavier 
 sea- water which it overlays, and a curious 
 effect is produced by the churning up of the 
 green sea-water, so that it contrasts strongly 
 in the steamer's wake with the tea coloured 
 fresh water on either side. 
 
 All the rivers are frequented by trout and 
 220 
 
THE OLD SALMON-FISHER OF MINGAN TENDING HIS NETS. 
 
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 nearly all by salmon, and although these 
 southern rivers are leased by sportsmen for 
 fly-fishing, the majority of the salmon are 
 caught not for sport but as a business in nets. 
 For some distance to the east of Seven Islands 
 there is a salmon-net at every mile mark along 
 the sandy shore. At the Moisie River a large 
 salmon-fishery is in operation. At Mingan 
 the Hudson's Bay Company sets several nets, 
 the old salmon-fisher with whom we stayed had 
 four or five more along the beach and at the 
 island opposite, and two Gaspe* men, camped 
 at the mouth of the Mingan River, set six or 
 seven more. Nets at the mouths of rivers are 
 allowed if they do not extend more than one 
 third of the way across. With all these nets to 
 intercept the salmon on their way up the Mingan 
 River to spawn it would seem as if few would 
 escape, yet the owner of the river was just 
 beginning his fly-fishing season as we left, and 
 the fishing was generally good in the pools below 
 the falls. We were told that at times the falls 
 were black in places with the fish, tirelessly 
 trying again and again to surmount them. 
 We saw none there on June 2ist but it was 
 
 still rather early in the season. 
 221 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 Salmon were plentiful at the mouth of the 
 river, however, and it was always interesting 
 to watch the men take the splendid great fish 
 out of the nets, and pack them in snow to await 
 transportation by steamer to Quebec. The 
 nets were generally supported by upright poles 
 which extended out at right angles with the 
 shore to a distance of two or three hundred 
 yards. V-shaped trap nets were placed at 
 intervals at right angles to the main net on 
 the side from which the salmon came; the 
 opening to the trap was on the shore side, as a 
 bewildered fish always strikes out into deeper 
 water when he fears capture. In their struggle 
 to escape they are securely caught by the gills 
 in the meshes of the net. Cartwright in his 
 poetical epistle on Labrador says: 
 
 "The Salmon now no more in Ocean play, 
 But up fresh Rivers take their silent way. 
 For them, with nicest art, we fix the net; 
 For them, the stream is carefully beset; 
 Few fish escape : We toil both night and day. 
 The Season's short, and Time flies swift away." 
 
 He spread his nets across the whole river! 
 
 Napoleon A. Comeau, the veteran naturalist 
 
 and hunter of the north shore of the Gulf of St. 
 
 222 
 
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 Lawrence, for forty-nine years guardian of the 
 Godbout salmon river, has written several 
 chapters on the salmon in a recent interesting 
 book. 1 He says that these fish move in from 
 the deeper waters of the gulf each year about 
 the middle of May to the shores on both the 
 north and south sides. To the west of Mingan 
 the salmon follow the coast up the St. Law- 
 rence River; at Mingan and below they follow 
 the coast to the eastward. All are intent on 
 entering the rivers to spawn, and this entrance 
 begins about the loth of June and continues 
 to the end of July. They remain in the estu- 
 aries of the rivers for some time before fighting 
 their way up the swift current and through 
 the rapids and falls of the rivers. The sites 
 chosen for spawning, which takes place in 
 September and October, are clear gravelly 
 bottoms where the current is fairly swift. In 
 the spring the salmon are in the best of con- 
 dition, fat and silvery, but towards the end 
 of October they are dark in colour and ema- 
 ciated and the males show " a snout like a pig 
 with an immense hook on the under jaw." " A 
 
 J Life and Sport on the North Shore of the Lower St. 
 Lawrence and Gulf, Quebec, 1909. 
 223 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 considerable proportion of the salmon that 
 spawn early enough, that is to say before 
 the rivers freeze over, return to the sea 
 the same fall. But a very large number winter 
 in the rivers and the lakes drained by them. 
 These are the fish that come down the rivers 
 in the spring as soon as the ice breaks up and 
 until the spring freshets are over." These are 
 called kelts or lingards. While the salmon in 
 October are dark and emaciated, the kelts 
 emerge in April with shining scales, a change 
 which Comeau believes due to a process of 
 moulting the old scales and reproduction of new 
 ones. 
 
 The newly hatched fry are called parrs, which 
 " pass into the smolt stage in their third and 
 fourth year, going out of the rivers in August 
 and September and sometimes in October." 
 In October they range in weight from half a 
 pound to a pound and a half. The next season 
 they ascend the rivers in July, August and 
 September under the name of grilse, weighing 
 then three to five pounds, still small enough 
 to run through the regulation salmon-nets with 
 a mesh of five inches. 
 
 Rivers polluted by saw-mills or in other 
 
 224 
 
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 ways are avoided by spawning salmon, while 
 rivers, like the Manitou, with falls of such a 
 size that the fish are unable to ascend them, al- 
 though there is much good spawning ground 
 above, are also avoided. Eventually these 
 rivers will be treated as are similar rivers in 
 Norway, where fish ladders are built enabling 
 the fish to pass by the falls. 
 
 Comeau gives some interesting figures show- 
 ing that contrary to the usual belief the catch 
 of salmon has increased over thirty per cent, 
 of late years. Thus the average yearly catch 
 of salmon for the whole of the Province of 
 Quebec for the years 1896, '97, '98 was 685,000 
 pounds, for 1906, '07, '08 over one million 
 pounds. He also presents some records of 
 fly-fishing on the St. John and Moisie Rivers. 
 During the season of 1871, five sportsmen be- 
 tween June 23d and July i8th caught with 
 the fly 416 salmon having a total weight of 
 4,755 Ibs. ; the largest fish weighed 26 Ibs. 
 In 1869 the result of 16 days' fishing with the 
 fly by one man on the Moisie was 138 salmon 
 weighing 2,413 Ibs., or an average of nearly 
 17 1-2 Ibs.; the largest fish weighed 37 Ibs. In 
 1871 the records of three rods in the Moisie was 
 
 225 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 325 fish weighing 5,789 1-2 Ibs., averaging about 
 1 8 Ibs. apiece; the largest fish in this case 
 weighed 34 Ibs. 
 
 During our stay at the old salmon-fisher's 
 at Mingan we saw something of the river of this 
 name, and we paddled up the three navigable 
 miles of its course to where it emerges from 
 the high land of the interior, and falls some 
 thirty feet over the Laurentian rocks to the 
 level of the sandy shore-plateau. Except for 
 the large volume of water, for the setting in the 
 dark forest and the background of the mysteri- 
 ous highland of the interior, these falls do not 
 call for any especial mention. Below the falls 
 the stream is one of considerable beauty, gen- 
 erally about a quarter of a mile wide, flowing 
 through the elevated plateau by banks of wind- 
 blown sand and spruce forests and bordered 
 by alders and birches. 
 
 Just back of the Hudson's Bay Company's 
 Post the river is rapidly wearing away the 
 sand cliffs of the right bank, but, rebounding, 
 it pursues a long S-curve to the sea. The char- 
 acter and extent of this curve is shown by the 
 fact that by one path from behind the salmon- 
 fisher's house the distance to the river is about 
 
 226 
 
THE MINGAN RIVER BACK OF THE H. B. C. POST. 
 
 NEST OF THE PIGEON HAWK. 
 
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 two hundred yards, by another, a straight 
 path by the telegraph wires, the river lower 
 down is reached at a distance of over a mile, 
 while along the beach to the mouth of the 
 river the distance is about three-fourths of a 
 mile. The continual wearing back of the right 
 bank by the impact of the river at the summit 
 of the curve threatens the little settlement 
 between it and the gulf, and it would not be 
 difficult to calculate when the river will break 
 through at this point, and wash the Honour- 
 able Hudson's Bay Company's Post into the 
 sea. 
 
 We were casting our flies for trout one day 
 from a sandy beach at the mouth of the Mingan 
 River when two competitors appeared in the 
 shape of a pair of seals, loups marines, 
 wolves of the sea the habitants call them, and 
 indeed they are nearly right both from a bio- 
 logical and practical point of view. It was a 
 pretty sight to watch their gambols, as with 
 arched backs they would rush above the sur- 
 face, and then disappear, or would throw them- 
 selves half out of water with a mighty splash 
 in the excitement and enjoyment of the chase. 
 I tried hard to see the trout in their jaws, but 
 227 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 the seals were too quick for me. The fish im- 
 mediately ceased striking, and evidently skulked 
 in alarm. I was only too glad, therefore, on 
 hearing the cries of a pigeon hawk, to lay down 
 my rod and follow the bird until it plainly in its 
 great anxiety pointed out its nest. This was 
 situated about twenty-five feet from the ground 
 in a tall black spruce, and was built of dry 
 sticks and thickly lined with soft rootlets, 
 small twigs and strips of soft bark, and it con- 
 tained five thickly spotted, chocolate-brown 
 eggs. Both parents flew about with rapidly 
 quivering wings uttering their sharp vibrating 
 ki ki ki; the voice of the smaller male was dis- 
 tinctly higher pitched and less harsh than that 
 of his larger mate. From time to time they 
 swooped down with great fury and swiftness 
 at the intruder, but always glanced up before 
 reaching him. 
 
 The Romaine River, one of the largest rivers 
 of the southern part of the Labrador Peninsula, 
 empties into the Gulf of St. Lawrence half way 
 between Mingan and Esquimaux Point. At 
 some distance from the coast it forms the most 
 important highway into the interior, and is 
 annually used by the majority of the Mon- 
 
 228 
 
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 tagnais Indians. As the lower part of its 
 course is interrupted by numerous rapids and 
 falls, the Indians ascend the St. John River 
 and portage, with aid of a series of lakes and 
 small streams to the Romaine, where its waters 
 flow more smoothly. Low, 1 who has followed 
 this route, says of the Romaine below the place 
 at which the portage-route leaves it: " Noth- 
 ing is known of the river for over fifty miles 
 below this point, except that it is quite im- 
 passable for canoes, probably on account of 
 long rapids with perpendicular rocky walls, 
 where portages are impossible. Nothing but 
 the absolute impossibility of passing up and 
 down this part of the river would induce the 
 Indians to make use of the present portage- 
 route between the Romaine and St. John Rivers, 
 which is the longest and worst of those known 
 to the writer anywhere in north-eastern Canada. 
 Careful inquiries from a score of. Indians met 
 coming inland afforded no information con- 
 cerning this part of the river, which has never 
 been descended by any one so far as known." 
 
 1 A. P. Low, Geological Survey of Canada. Report on 
 explorations in the Labrador Peninsula, Ottawa, 1896, p. 
 170. 
 
 229 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 This point in the Romaine River where the 
 known leaves off and the unknown begins is 
 about 75 miles in a straight line from the sea 
 according to Low's map, or about 100 miles by 
 the river. The number of portages from the 
 Romaine to the St. John River, according to 
 Low, is thirty-one, " and their combined length 
 aggregates nineteen miles and a half." The 
 water part of this route between the two rivers, 
 made up of lakes and small streams, aggre- 
 gates some forty miles in length. The diffi- 
 culties of this long portage must be great, but 
 it only serves to emphasize the fact that the 
 lower course of the Romaine is impas- 
 sable. 
 
 Cabot gives an interesting derivation 
 for the name of this river, a derivation 
 very different from the apparent one of Italian 
 origin. He says: "Its Indian name ' Alimun,' 
 meaning difficult, has passed through a re- 
 arrangement of sounds unusual in the ad- 
 justing of Indian names to French organs 
 of speech. From * L'Alimun ' to ' La Ro- 
 maine ' the transition is easy, surprisingly 
 so, considering that no less a feat is involved 
 than the introduction of the full rolling r 
 230 
 
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 into a language which has not the r-sound at 
 all." ' 
 
 Although we caught a glimpse from the 
 steamer of the Romaine River as it empties 
 into the sea, our most satisfactory and inter- 
 esting acquaintance with it was in the wilder- 
 ness north of Esquimaux Point, for here the 
 river flows from east to west parallel with the 
 coast. Our search for the Romaine was made 
 on July nth, a day on which many of the 
 smaller birds had arrived, and winter was 
 changing to summer, a day when the tempera- 
 ture climbed above 60 at noon, although it 
 registered only 48 Far. morning and night. 
 
 The path from Esquimaux Point starts at the 
 crucifix behind the village, and goes north 
 through the spruce and balsam woods, woods 
 that were stunted by frequent cutting. We 
 soon came to a bog, the familiar bog of Labra- 
 dor, overflowing with moisture, a great sponge 
 of sphagnum moss and reindeer lichen, inter- 
 spersed with clumps of Labrador tea and laurel 
 and alder, and with scattered larches and 
 spruces, so dwarfed and prostrate as to scarce 
 
 Labrador, by W. T. Grenfell and Others. New York, 
 1909, p. 193- 
 
 231 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 rise above the moss. The botany of these bogs, 
 plains or tundras, whatever one may choose to 
 call them, always interested me and helped on 
 in the difficult work of traversing them. Bog 
 trotting, forsooth, bog trudging, in truth, 
 for when one sinks at every step nearly to the 
 knee in the wet, elastic moss, one wishes for 
 wings or perhaps snow-shoes. Audubon in a 
 letter to his wife from this coast written July 
 23, 1833, says: " Think of Mosses in which at 
 every step you take you sink in up to your 
 knees, soft as velvet, and as rich in colour." 
 Over four of these bogs we passed, each 
 larger than the last, and we crossed inter- 
 vening ridges grown up to woods. In one place 
 there was a bare, sandy ridge, the edge of a 
 raised beach, but little changed since its ele- 
 vation above sea level. 
 
 In the bogs were numerous ponds of all 
 sizes from an acre to a square mile or two in 
 extent. These ponds represent the contest 
 between the force of water and of the growth 
 of vegetation. It is evident that these plains 
 were once the sea, and as the land rose and the 
 sea was cut off they became great shallow 
 fresh water lakes, around and in which the bog 
 
 232 
 
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 growth was constantly pressing. Now some 
 of the plains are filled with vegetation, in others 
 the ponds remain with everywhere mossy and 
 bushy edges, which are constantly striving 
 to gain foot hold waterward. In places, es- 
 pecially on the sheltered sides, it is evident 
 that vegetation is conquering the water, ex- 
 tending out in spots in floating islands over the 
 surface. On the opposite side, exposed to the 
 waves created by the strong, prevailing winds, 
 the vegetation is in places undermined and 
 falling in. That the bog will eventually win 
 in this battle is only too evident. Then in turn 
 the bog gives way to the evergreen forest grad- 
 ually creeping in, the way paved by a growth 
 of bushes which help to consolidate the spongy 
 mass. 
 
 In one of the small ponds of a bog was a tiny 
 islet, on which was a mass of goose down. Peer 
 as we might we could not see the goose eggs 
 that we were sure were concealed in this mass, 
 and it was useless to attempt to wade or swim 
 to the island, for the water, although clear on 
 top and but a few inches to a few feet deep, 
 was filled with flocculent peaty mud below of 
 uncertain depth. However, a general photo- 
 
 233 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 graph from a distance of the pond and islet 
 and nest was taken, and this was sufficient to 
 show the fact that Canada geese still nest near 
 the southern Labrador coast. We saw eight 
 or ten geese that day, some of whom honked 
 cheerfully while others appeared to be nervous 
 at our approach, and it was probable that 
 more nests were concealed in the neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 The last ridge we crossed that day was of 
 considerable extent and thickly wooded, and, 
 although threaded with several paths which 
 were evidently used in winter wood cutting, 
 there was no sign of a path over the extensive 
 bog beyond. Hitherto we had been guided 
 by an occasional stake, but here there were 
 none. However, we determined to press on 
 due north towards the rocky ridge of mountains 
 which appeared no nearer than when we started, 
 marking carefully the point where we left the 
 woods, near some limestone cliffs that faced the 
 inland sea of moss, just as the cliffs of Es- 
 quimaux Island face the tides that flow be- 
 tween them and the shore. Some time, if the 
 upheaval still continues, Esquimaux Sound 
 
 will be replaced by moss. 
 
 234 
 
FALLS OF THE MINGAN. 
 
 THE ROMAINE RIVER NORTH OF ESQUIMAUX POINT. 
 
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 This was the most extensive bog of all, and 
 although we were occasionally encouraged by 
 dog signs which showed that we were going 
 in the direction taken by the dog-sledges in 
 winter, we had begun to be very sceptical 
 as to the existence of the river at all, for 
 we had trudged on for five hours, and we had 
 been told that the river was only five miles off. 
 These, however, were winter miles with a foot- 
 ing of ice and snow for fast-running dogs. 
 Suddenly right before us, sweeping across our 
 path was the river, and this view alone well 
 repaid us for all our efforts. There was a 
 sudden drop in the tundra, a big snowbank, a 
 fringe of birches just leafing out in delicate 
 green, and waving their yellow tassels of cat- 
 kins to the breeze, a few spires of spruces almost 
 black in comparison, and then, but a stone's 
 throw away, and forty or fifty feet below us, 
 the mighty river, dark blue but flecked with 
 whitecaps, flowing swiftly to the westward. 
 Its breadth was about a third of a mile, and 
 beyond stretched a great plain of dark green 
 spruce forest, the typical forest of the Hud- 
 sonian zone, dark, impenetrable, mysterious. 
 A small winding branch stream entered the 
 
 235 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 main river almost opposite. Beyond the 
 forest plain was a wooded ridge of hills, and 
 beyond this at a distance I could not even 
 guess, was the eternal ridge, the foreguard 
 of the rocky heights of the interior, a ridge 
 blue and gray and white. 
 
 To the east there was a glorious view of the 
 river flowing swiftly towards us for two or three 
 miles, and issuing from the forest to the north. 
 Here and there on either side of the river were 
 low white sand-banks, their whiteness making 
 a beautiful foil for the dark green spruces and 
 blue water. Near at hand, on the south side of 
 the river above the fringe of birches which 
 skirted the edge, was a forest of tall gaunt 
 spruces, a few giants standing out bare and 
 leafless save for a tuft of dark green which 
 crowned their summits. Below us to the west 
 the river was parted by a wooded island, and 
 the roar of the rapids on either side came to our 
 ears like the surging of a mighty wind. Above 
 the blue sky was flecked with fleecy clouds, 
 and great cumuli were boiling up from the 
 mountains in the north. 
 
 We climbed down over the snowbank into the 
 wet, tangled forest below, but could not approach 
 236 
 
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 the water on account of the thick fringe of 
 alders, so we scaled again the bank, and found 
 a warm sunny spot just below the edge, where, 
 sheltered from the chilly wind which blew 
 across the tundra, we could feast our eyes on 
 the river to our heart's content. Close at our 
 feet the snowbank still held many trees and 
 bushes in its fetters. They were still leafless, 
 while those below were clothed in the green 
 of early summer. A larch near at hand, bent 
 and twisted by the weight of many winters, 
 had just emerged black and bare from the 
 winter's blanket, yet it already showed on its 
 topmost branches a promise of faint green buds. 
 In the narrow valley below another larch hid 
 its black branches under a green veil, and re- 
 joiced in its strength. Near the snow drift 
 the ground was naked, or brown and sere, 
 while a few feet away it was clothed in the 
 delicate green of young grasses and tender 
 herbs. The bank above my head was blossom- 
 ing with the white flowers of the cassandra, 
 while the purple buds of the andromeda and 
 the pale yellows once of the Labrador tea 
 were just ready to open. In all three of these 
 the leaves were fully out, for they are ever- 
 237 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 green, and had remained from the previous 
 summer. 
 
 A redstart, the " little torch " of the Cubans, 
 and a magnolia warbler, gems of beauty which 
 to the uninitiated would appear to be birds of 
 the tropics only, were flitting about among the 
 treetops, constantly expressing their love and 
 joy of life in songs. That of the redstart was 
 " sibilant and insistent," that of the magnolia 
 warbler recalled the famous words veni, vidi, 
 vici. A lonely loon was swimming in the 
 surges below and then rose and flew into the 
 dark forest beyond. 
 
 The snowbank, the soft, tender birches and 
 larches, the mysterious, mighty river, the 
 dark, trackless forest, the distant mountains, 
 the shadowy high land of the north, the land of 
 the ptarmigan, the caribou and the Indian, 
 all made a picture I shall never forget. The 
 spirit and the charm of wild beauty and mys- 
 tery pervaded it all. 
 
 It was possible to enjoy all this ethereal 
 beauty and mystery, and yet to be of the earth, 
 earthy, and I hold that there is no shame in the 
 latter, for we enjoyed a dinner of the best on this 
 glorious day. After some erbsewurst soup, 
 
 238 
 
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 hot in the frying-pan, a kindly provision of 
 circumstances which forcibly, and at times 
 painfully, checks too much haste, we were able 
 to eat our cake as well as to keep it, for we 
 partook of a Labrador spruce partridge whose 
 skin we preserved as a specimen, and topped 
 off oh ! ye gods with what we were pleased 
 to call chocolate ice cream a mixture of 
 scraped sweet chocolate and snow. 
 
 As we returned over the tundra a sudden cold 
 wind swept down on us from the north bearing 
 with it a few drops of rain. Four geese flew 
 low against the blast, and, setting their wings, 
 alighted on the margin of a lakelet, where they 
 kept up a continuous conversational honking. 
 Two great black-backed gulls soared over head, 
 and the roar of the river was intensified in the 
 gusts. Gaining the first forested ridge, we 
 looked back to the mocking mountains which 
 appeared nearer than ever, as the north wind 
 had cleared the atmosphere. As we approached 
 our little village at the end of the day, we were 
 so fortunate as to see a pair of marsh hawks, 
 sailing over a bog, a bird that was recorded by 
 Audubon from Labrador and by only one other 
 observer, for Stearns obtained a specimen there 
 
 239 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 nearly thirty years ago. Our expedition to the 
 Romaine River was well worth while. 
 
 The Moisie River is an old Indian route into 
 the interior, by way of an east branch of the 
 Cold Water River, Lake Ashuanipi and the 
 Ashuanipi River, Lake Petitskapau and the 
 Grand River. It was the Moisie River that 
 Henry Yule Hind ascended in 1861, and of 
 which he published in 1863 a most interesting 
 work in two volumes entitled: " Explorations 
 in the Interior of the Labrador Peninsula, the 
 Country of the Montagnais and Nasquapee In- 
 dians." Hind began the ascent of the river 
 by canoes on June loth, 1861, and, after many 
 difficulties and trying portages, reached on 
 July 2d, by way of the east branch, the height 
 of land 2,240 feet above the sea, and over a 
 hundred miles from it in a straight line. On 
 his return he ran some of the six formidable 
 rapids and, on reaching the mouth of the Moisie 
 early in July, he says "we .... took up our 
 quarters under the hospitable roof of Mr. Holli- 
 day, the lessee of the Moisie Salmon Fishery," 
 which is continued by the sons who also 
 own the line of mail steamers to this day. 
 
 I was glad to see the mist of the mighty falls 
 
 240 
 
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 of the Manitou River rising up in the dark 
 forest as we steamed along the coast, even if I 
 could not see the falls themselves, which are a 
 mile and a half from the shore. The river is the 
 third or fourth in magnitude on the coast, and 
 the falls, which make a sheer descent of 1 13 feet, 
 must be of considerable grandeur and beauty. 
 Hind relates that the " Manitou River takes 
 its name from the following incident, which is 
 often described in Montagnais wigwams to 
 eager listeners never weary of repetition. About 
 200 years ago, when the Lower St. Lawrence was 
 first visited by the Jesuits, the Montagnais 
 were at war with the Souriquois or Micmacs 
 of Acadia, who inhabited the south shore of the 
 St. Lawrence and the country now called New 
 Brunswick. A large party of Micmacs had 
 crossed over the estuary of the St. Lawrence at 
 its narrowest point and coasted towards Seven 
 Islands, but not finding any Montagnais there, 
 they descended during the night-time to the 
 Moisie, and thence to the Manitou River, down 
 which stream a few Montagnais bands were 
 accustomed to come from the interior to the 
 coast, to fish for salmon and seals. The Micmacs 
 landed some miles before they reached the 
 
 241 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 Manitou River, hid their canoes in the woods 
 and stole towards the falls of the Manitou, to 
 lie in ambush until the Montagnais should 
 descend to the portage. The Montagnais knew 
 their strength, and in the dim morning light 
 began the fight at once, and after severe loss 
 succeeded in killing or taking all but the leader 
 of the Micmacs' band, a noted warrior and 
 conjuror, and one whom the Montagnais were 
 most anxious to take alive. Finding escape 
 hopeless, he sprang to the edge of the cataract, 
 and, crouching behind a rock, began to sing 
 a defiant war-song, occasionally sending an 
 arrow with fatal effect at those who were bold 
 enough to show themselves. The Montagnais, 
 sure of their prey, contented themselves with 
 singing their songs of triumph. The Micmac 
 chief and conjuror suddenly jumped upon the 
 rock behind which he was hidden, and apt. 
 preached the Montagnais, telling them to 
 shoot. But the Montagnais wanted their 
 prisoner alive, so they let their arrows rest. The 
 conjuror next threw away his bows and arrows, 
 and invited them to come and attack him with 
 their knives. The Montagnais chief, anxious 
 to display his courage, rose from his conceal- 
 
 242 
 
FALLS OF PIASHTE-BAI RIVER. 
 
 NEAR THE FOOT OF THE FALLS. 
 
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 ment, knife in hand, and, throwing away his 
 bow and arrows, sprang towards the Micmac, 
 who, to the amazement of all beholders, re- 
 treated towards the edge of the rock over- 
 hanging the falls, thus drawing his enemy on, 
 when, with sudden spring, he locked him in a 
 fatal embrace, and, struggling towards the 
 edge of the precipice, leaped with a shout of 
 triumph into the foaming waters, and was in- 
 stantly swept away over the tremendous cata- 
 ract, which has since borne the name of the 
 conjuror's or the Manitousin Falls." 
 
 On the 28th of May we paddled and rowed in 
 a modified or " evolved " canoe up the Piashte- 
 bai River. A mile from the bay brought us to a 
 considerable expansion of the river, and, had 
 it not been for our guide, we might have spent 
 many hours in searching the shores of this lake 
 for the continuation of the river above. As 
 it was we were shown the river where we least 
 expected it, flowing for a mile through a 
 drowned muskeg, and then emerging from the 
 forest with rapid course. The swift current 
 finally prevented further progress, and, landing 
 on the right bank near an old bear trap, we fol- 
 lowed through the thick spruce woods an Indian 
 
 243 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 portage path that soon began to ascend the 
 rocky barren hills we had seen before us. This 
 path ends on the high land at a small lake from 
 which the river discharges, and throws itself 
 in a broken fall of great beauty down a hundred 
 and fifty feet or more into the forest below. 
 Although the falls are not a sheer descent, but 
 form an angle of about forty-five degrees, the 
 effect is grand, as the great volumes of white 
 waters come bounding down the decline, ap- 
 pearing to burst and throw themselves thirty 
 or forty feet into the air in their progress. 
 The setting in the wild forest added much to 
 the beauty of the scene, for, with the exception 
 of the faintly marked Indian portage-path, 
 there was no sign of man to be found, there 
 was no park, no " path to view the falls." By 
 gradually working my way through the thick 
 spruces and birches that grew luxuriantly in the 
 constant spray, I managed to reach a point of 
 advantage at the foot of the falls. Both the 
 air and the fallen tree on which I stood were 
 quivering and throbbing with the pulse-beat 
 of the cataract, which roared loudly in my ears, 
 and the trees swayed with the force of the blasts 
 of air and spray. The leaping, spouting waters, 
 
 244 
 
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 plunging down with a front of over a hundred 
 feet, contract to half this width at the foot and 
 take an abrupt turn to the right to form the 
 rapids and whirlpools below. 
 
 All the rivers were not large, and we spent 
 many happy hours bird-watching and explor- 
 ing in the neighbourhood of an attractive stream 
 near Esquimaux Point. Inquiring of our good 
 friend the government doctor stationed at this 
 village as to its name, for the stream was not 
 noticed on the chart, he modestly confessed 
 that the villagers called it La Rivikre du Doc- 
 teur, because he kept a canoe on it in summer 
 above the rapids, and fished it for trout. As 
 we frequently dined on its bank we occasionally 
 cast a fly, but the waters were still too cold with 
 melting snow, and we never beguiled a trout 
 from them into the pan. I can testify not 
 only to the coldness of its waters, but also to 
 the swiftness of its current and the sharpness 
 of its limestone bed, for interesting birds had 
 an annoying habit of flying to the opposite 
 bank. My companion, more thoughtful than I, 
 had provided himself with hip rubber boots, 
 but he generously paid the penalty by act- 
 ing the part of the old man of the sea, on 
 
 245 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 the rare occasions when we did not lose each 
 other. 
 
 Perhaps the most frequent and certainly the 
 most prominent bird song heard near this river 
 was that of the fox sparrow. Its wonderfully 
 clear flute- like notes came forth from the 
 spruces at all times of day, delivered with a 
 great precision, and with a mastery of tech- 
 nique that can scarcely be rivalled in the bird 
 chorus. One who has heard only the imperfect 
 songs of this bird in its brief passage through the 
 eastern States, and before the ecstasy of its 
 passion has been attained, can not realize the 
 intensity and scope of its love utterances in its 
 breeding home. It was a song that one could 
 not but admire for the beauty and richness of 
 its performance, but at the same time one felt 
 that it lacked the charm, the soul, the spirit- 
 uality or whatever one may call it that applies 
 so forcibly to the divine song of the hermit 
 thrush or the simpler melody of the white- 
 throated sparrow, songs of which one never 
 tires. 
 
 Sometimes the brightest gems are buried in 
 obscure and unexpected places. In one of the 
 scientific publications of the Boston Society 
 
 246 
 
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 of Natural History for the year 1883, the follow- 
 ing by Mr. William Brewster, who paid a flying 
 visit to southern Labrador in 1881, more clearly 
 expresses these thoughts, and well describes 
 the song of the fox sparrow and its settings: 
 " What the Mocking-bird is to the South, 
 the Meadow Lark to the plains of the West, 
 the Robin and Song Sparrow to Massachusetts, 
 and the White-throated Sparrow to northern 
 New England, the Fox Sparrow is to the bleak 
 regions bordering the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 
 At all hours of the day, in every kind of weather 
 late into the brief summer, its voice rises among 
 the evergreen woods filling the air with quiver- 
 ing, delicious melody, which at length dies 
 softly, mingling with the soughing of the wind in 
 the spruces, or drowned by the muffled roar 
 of the surf beating against neighbouring cliffs. 
 To my ear the prominent characteristic of its 
 voice is richness. It expresses careless joy and 
 exultant masculine vigour, rather than delicate 
 shades of sentiment, and on this account is 
 perhaps of a lower order than the pure, passion- 
 less hymn of the Hermit Thrush ; but it is such 
 a fervent, sensuous and withal perfectly- 
 rounded carol that it affects the ear much as 
 247 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 sweet-meats do the palate, and for the moment 
 renders all other bird music dull and uninterest- 
 ing by comparison." 
 
 Another small stream, yet of considerable size, 
 was one whose distant roaring added to the 
 charms of the little protected harbour among 
 the Isles des Corneilles, where we had cast 
 anchor. This stream, this River of the Crow, 
 for such I suppose was its name, gave me but 
 a glimpse of its rushing, turbid waters as it 
 came pouring down through the spruce forest, 
 whose melting snows were silently adding to 
 its volume. From these dark and tangled 
 evergreen thickets not only here but also along 
 the whole coast, a wonderfully varied and de- 
 lightful bird-song would emerge at frequent 
 intervals and at all times of day. Like most 
 of the inhabitants of this coast the bird spoke 
 French, and, with great clearness and insistence, 
 it would frequently and repeatedly call tout 
 de suite. At least so it seemed to me, but per- 
 haps it was because of my recently acquired 
 sensitiveness to the French language, for in 
 Newfoundland and other English-speaking 
 countries I had never noticed this French 
 phrase. It would also say loudly and clearly 
 
 248 
 
BOG ENCROACHING ON POOL AND FOREST ENCROACHING ON BOG. 
 
 SPRUCE FOREST, SNOW-BANK AND THE RIVER OF THE CROW. 
 
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
 
 pop-a-teet, sweet sweet, or repeat the sweet, sweet 
 continuously for minutes at a time. These and 
 many other notes were but the preludes or in- 
 terludes to the real song which varied with the 
 singer or his mood, but, in what I deemed its 
 classical form, consisted of three parts: the 
 first faint and lisping, suggestive of the black 
 and white warbler; the second clear and flute- 
 like recalling some of the notes of the robin, 
 while the third part, the climax, is a wonderful 
 succession of delightfully musical triplets with 
 rising inflection. One might imagine that not 
 one, but several birds were thus performing, 
 or if there were but one performer, he would 
 be at least as large as a bullfinch. This wonder- 
 ful singer, the ruby-crowned kinglet, is, however, 
 about the bigness of one's thumb, and how he 
 manages to get so much melody out of his little 
 frame, or so much inspiration from a wilderness, 
 is to me an unexplained mystery. 
 
 While the eastern Labrador coast is conspic- 
 uous for its rocky headlands, its deep harbours 
 and narrow fiords, this portion of the southern 
 coast is equally conspicuous for its long reaches 
 of sandy shores, its coastal plain and its barrier 
 j mountain range, and while the drainage on the 
 
 249 
 
A LABRADOR SPRING 
 
 eastern coast concentrates the chief part of its 
 floods at one point, the Grand River in Hamilton 
 Inlet, the southern coast is remarkable for the 
 number and size of its rivers, which pour out at 
 frequent intervals along the shore. These 
 rivers are, with but trifling exceptions, still 
 unknown by the white man except at their 
 mouths where they are leased for salmon-fishing, 
 and, although they lie at our doors, their op- 
 portunities for exploration and adventure still 
 remain unheeded. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 250 
 
Index 
 
 NOTE. The scientific names of the birds and plants are 
 given after their common names. 
 
 Acadia, 64. 
 
 Acadians, 64, 65. 
 
 Acadians, Religion of, 73-81. 
 
 Agriculture, 70, 71. 
 
 Alder, Speckled (Alnus incana), 13, 18, 237. 
 
 Andromeda (Andromeda glaucophilla) , 16, 237. 
 
 Aspen (Populus tremuloides) , 46. 
 
 Audubon, 26, 125, 129, 232, 239. 
 
 Auk, Razor-billed (Alca tor da), 58, 128. 
 
 Avens, Mountain (Dryas integrifolia), 22. 
 
 Bake-apple, see Cloudberry. 
 
 Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea), 15, 19, 210, 213-215. 
 
 Barge, 105, 165. 
 
 Battle Harbour, 152. 
 
 Bay, Piashte-bai, 115, 117. 
 
 Bay of Seven Islands, 37. 
 
 Bay, Yellow, 121. 
 
 Bay, Washtawooka, 123. 
 
 Bearberry (Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi and A. alpina}, 17. 
 
 Beaver, 115, 116, 167. 
 
 251 
 
INDEX 
 
 Bendire, Charles, 101. 
 
 Betchewun, in. 
 
 Billiards, 143, 144. 
 
 Birch, Canoe (Betula alba), 14, 19, 37, 46, 235. 
 
 Bird Song, Evolution of, 27. 
 
 Bissot, Sieur de la Riviere, 41, 172. 
 
 Blanche, Monseigneur Gustave, 77. 
 
 Bluebird (Sialia sialis), 12. 
 
 Bog, 15, 24, 48, 63, 209, 210, 231-233. 
 
 Bonnycastle, Sir Richard, 96. 
 
 Boudrot, Ferman, 65. 
 
 Boulders, Glacial, see Erratics. 
 
 Brant (Branta bernida), 38, 39. 
 
 Brass bracelet, 115. 
 
 Brewster, William, 98, 247. 
 
 Burgomaster, see Gull, Glaucous. 
 
 Burrows of puffin, 127. 
 
 Cabot, John and Sebastian, 40, 41. 
 
 Cabot, W. B., 150, 161, 230. 
 
 Calli on trees, 19. 
 
 Canoe, Indian, 104, 120, 165. 
 
 Cartier, Jacques, 39, 40, 152. 
 
 Cartwright, Capt. George, 13, 32, 130, 131, 152, 222. 
 
 Cartwrights, Three modern, 130-148. 
 
 Cassandra (Chamaedaphne calyculata} , 16, 237. 
 
 Catlin, George, 176. 
 
 Cats, 162, 163, 165. 
 
 Church of St. Peter, 69, 74-76. 
 
 Clark City, 38. 
 
 Cloudberry (Rubus Chamaemorus), u, 26, 49. 
 
 Coastal plain, 49, 123, 226. 
 
 Collins, Robin Company, 54. 
 
 252 
 
INDEX 
 
 Cod, 71, 73- 
 
 Comeau, N. A., 222-226. 
 
 Cook, Capt., 41. 
 
 Cormorant, Double-crested (Phalacrocorax auritus), in- 
 
 113, 117, 118. 
 
 Cornel, Dwarf (Cornus canadensis), 16, 49. 
 Corpus Christi, Feast of, 78-81. 
 Corte-Real, Caspar, 41. 
 Courtship of black duck, 95, 96. 
 Courtship of eider, 84-89. 
 Courtship of golden-eye, 89-95. 
 Courtship of some Labrador birds, 83-103. 
 Courtship of ruffed grouse, 98, 99. 
 Courtship of spruce partridge, 100, 101. 
 Courtship of ptarmigan, 99, 100. 
 Courtship of puffin, 96, 97. 
 
 Cow parsnip (Heracleum lanatum), 14, 20, 127. 
 Crepes, 124. 
 Currant (Kibes triste, also R. prostratum and gooseberry, 
 
 R. oxycanthoides), 13, 20. 
 
 Dogs, Eskimo, 134. 
 
 Dogs, Indian, 163. 
 
 Dress of Indians, see Indians, dress of. 
 
 Dress of French inhabitants, 43, 71, 75. 
 
 Duck, Barrow's golden-eye (Clangula islandicus} , 94, 141. 
 
 Duck, Black (Anas rubripes), 95, 132. 
 
 Duck, Eider (Somateria dresseri}, 63, 84-89, 107, 114, 159. 
 
 Duck, Harlequin (Histrionicus histrionicus) , 119. 
 
 Duck, Long-tailed (Harelda hyemalis), 52, 53. 
 
 Duck, Golden-eye (Clangula clangula americana}, 89-95. 
 
 Eel-grass (Zostera marina'), 38. 
 Egging and eggers, 159. 
 
 253 
 
INDEX 
 
 Eider, see Duck, Eider. 
 
 Eider-down, 159. 
 
 Elevation of the land, 109, 123, 232. 
 
 Erratics, Glacial, 47. 
 
 Eskimos, 151, 152. 
 
 Esquimaux Point, 13, 65-82. 
 
 Eudist fathers, 77. 
 
 Falls of the Manitou River, 240-243. 
 
 Falls of the Mingan River, 226. 
 
 Falls of the Piashte-bai River, 244, 245. 
 
 Falls of the Riviere Blanche, 53. 
 
 Ferland, Abbe, 81. 
 
 Fires, Forest, 46, 149, 168. 
 
 Fishermen, 67, 73, 74. 
 
 Fish-flakes, 54. 
 
 Fishing boats, 42, 54, 72, 73- 
 
 Flies, 32. 
 
 Flight song, 49. 
 
 Flycatcher, Least (Empidonax minimus}, 27. 
 
 Flycatcher, Yellow-bellied (Empidonax Haviventris} t 26-30, 
 
 32. 
 
 Foxes, Black, Breeding of, 136-140. 
 Frazar, M. Abbott, 125. 
 Fur-trader, 115, 169, 172. 
 
 Gannet (Sula bassand), 54, 58, 59- 
 Gaspe, 37. 
 
 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 39- 
 Glacial phenomena, 37, 47, 48, 61. 
 Goldthread (Coptis trifolia), 16, 20. 
 Goose, Canada (Branta canadensis), 114, 234, 239. 
 Granitic rocks, 37, 49, 118. 
 Grenfell, Dr. W. T., 68, 106, 126. 
 254 
 
INDEX 
 
 Grilse, 224. 
 
 Guillemot, Black (Cephus grylle}, 62. 
 Gulf of St. Lawrence, 36. 
 Gull, Glaucous (Larus glaucus}, 51. 
 
 Gull, Great black-backed {Larus marinus), 63, 109-111, 
 239- 
 
 Hakluyt, 33, 39. 
 
 Harrington, 126. 
 
 Havre des Sauvages, 122. 
 
 Hawk, Marsh (Circus hudsonicus) , 239. 
 
 Hawk, Pigeon (Falco columbarius), 228. 
 
 Hearn, Capt, 126. 
 
 Hind, Henry Yule, 44, 149, 150, 166, 167, 176, 240. 
 
 Holliday Brothers, 50, 240. 
 
 Horned Lark (Otocoris alpestris), 45. 
 
 Hubbard, Mrs. Leonidas, 150. 
 
 Hudson's Bay Company, 42, 59, 167, 170-175, 216. 
 
 Hylas, 17. 
 
 Ice, 24, 25. 
 
 Indians, Algonquin, 151. 
 
 Indians, Diseases of, 177-179. 
 
 Indians, Dress of, 155-157, 163, 164. 
 
 Indians, Dwellings of, 157, 158, 177. 
 
 Indians, Iroquois, 151, 152. 
 
 Indians, Migration of, 166. 
 
 Indians, Montagnais, 149-179, 229, 241-243. 
 
 Indians, Nascaupee, 151, 167. 
 
 Indians, Religion of, 160, 161, 165. 
 
 Indian Trading House, 174, 175. 
 
 Island of Anticosti, 49. 
 
 Island, Bald, 127, 128. 
 
 255 
 
INDEX 
 
 Island, Charles, 108. 
 
 Islands of the Crow, see Isles des Corneilles. 
 
 Island, Esquimaux, 17, 21, 61-63, 108. 
 
 Island, Faux Pas, 109. 
 
 Islands, Perroquets, 58. 
 
 Island, Hunting, 108, in. 
 
 Island, Little St. Charles, 128. 
 
 Islands, Mingan, 59. 
 
 Island, St. Genevieve, 60. 
 
 Island, Sea-cow, 108. 
 
 Isles des Corneilles, 114, 153- 
 
 Jay, Blue (Cyanocitta cristata), 141. 
 Jolliet, Louis, 41. 
 Junco (Junco hyemalis) , 30. 
 
 Juniper (Juniperus communis var. depressa and 7. hori- 
 zontalis), 15. 
 
 Kelt, 224. 
 
 Kinglet, Ruby-crowned (Regulus calendula}, 30, 248, 249. 
 
 Kingbird (Tyranus tyranus), 26. 
 
 Kneeling posture, 120, 157. 
 
 La Belle Marguerite, Cruise of, 103-129. 
 Labrador Company, 172. 
 Labrador Fur-trading Co., 124. 
 Labrador Peninsula, Definition of, 36. 
 Labrador Tea (Ledum groenlandicum), n, 16, 231, 237. 
 Language, French, 43, 65-67. 
 Language, Indian, 170. 
 Larch (Larix laricina}, 14, I9 210-213, 237. 
 Lark, Horned, see Horned Lark. 
 
 Laurel (Kalmia polifolia and K. angustifolia}, 16, 48, 231. 
 256 
 
INDEX 
 
 Legs in traps, 133. 
 
 Lichens, 15, 46, 47. 
 
 Limestone, 17, 22, 60, 61, 62, 234. 
 
 Lobsters, 113, 122, 137. 
 
 Long Point, 58. 
 
 Loon (Gavia immer), 51, 52, 162, 238. 
 
 Loss of hair, Story of, 124, 125. 
 
 Low, A. P., 44, 49, 150, 151, 229. 
 
 Lucas, F. A., 59. 
 
 Margot, see Gannet. 
 
 Marigold, Marsh (Caltha palustris}, 20. 
 
 Martial, 104, 105, 106, 120. 
 
 Maryland yellow-throat (Geothlypis trichas), 31. 
 
 Mathias, 104, 105, 107, 115, 121. 
 
 Mica mine, 117. 
 
 Mills, Enos A., 206. 
 
 Mingan, 59, 170. 
 
 Mingan, Seigniory of, 41, 171, 172. 
 
 Modern bird-study, 186-188. 
 
 Moisie, 50. 
 
 Mosquitoes, 32, 33. 
 
 Mountains, 38, 43-50, 234, 236. 
 
 Mountain Ash (Pyrus americana) , 14, 20. 
 
 Mount St. John, 44, 58. 
 
 Murre (Uria troille}, 132. 
 
 Musquarro, 160, 161. 
 
 Natashquan, 20, 123, 124. 
 Nest of Canada goose, 233, 234. 
 Nest and eggs of double-crested cormorant, 112, 113. 
 Nest and eggs of eider, 114. 
 Nest and eggs of golden-eye, 90. 
 257 
 
INDEX 
 
 Nest and eggs of great black-backed gull, 109, 1 10. 
 Nest and eggs of spruce partridge, 129. 
 Nest and eggs of pigeon hawk, 228. 
 Nest and eggs of puffin, 127. 
 
 Old Squaw, see Duck, Long-tailed. 
 Omelet, 116, 117. 
 
 Orchid, Calypso {Calypso bulbosa), 21. 
 Ox, Magpie, 54-57- 
 
 Parr, 224. 
 
 Partridge, Hudsonian spruce (Canachites canadensis), 100, 
 
 101, 129. 
 
 Pashasheeboo, 122. 
 Perroquet, see Puffin. 
 
 Phalarope, Northern (Lobipes lobatus), 109. 
 Pipit (Anthus rubescens), 30, 45. 
 Pitcher-plant (Sarracenia purpurea), 15. 
 Plongeur, see Duck, Golden-eye. 
 Plover, Piping (^Egialitis meloda), 125. 
 Porcupine, 167, 168. 
 Priests, 76-80, 125, 160, 161. 
 
 Primrose, Mealy (Primula farinosa var. incana), 22. 
 Protection to nesting birds, 159. 
 Ptarmigan, willow (Lagopus lagopus}, 45, 141, 167. 
 Puffin (Fratercula arctica), 58, 96, 97, 127, 128. 
 Purple finch (Carpodacus purpureus}, 49. 
 
 Quatachoo, 118. 
 
 Raquettes, see Snow-shoes. 
 Raspberry, Arctic (Rubus arcticus), 30. 
 Raven (Corvus corax principalis} , 62. 
 258 
 
INDEX 
 
 Red-osier (Cornus stolonifera}, 14, 20. 
 
 Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla), 18, 21, 31. 238. 
 
 Refrigerating plant, 141. 
 
 Rhodora (Rhodora canadense}, 48. 
 
 Richelieu, Cardinal, 171. 
 
 River, Agwanus, 122. 
 
 River, Crow or Corneille, 113, 248. 
 
 River, Grand or Hamilton, 46, 150. 
 
 River, Grand or Sandy, 53. 
 
 River, Little Natashquan, 123, 124. 
 
 River, Magpie, 54. 
 
 River, Manitou, 225, 240-243. 
 
 River, Mingan, 30, 45, 221, 226, 227. 
 
 River, Moisie, 50, 166, 225, 240. 
 
 River, Nabesippi, 122. 
 
 River, Natashquan, 125, 160, 166. 
 
 River, Piashte-bai, 243-245. 
 
 River, Romaine, 18, 24, 121, 166, 228-240. 
 
 River, St. Marguerite, 37, 166. 
 
 River, St. John, 151, 166, 225, 229. 
 
 River, St. Lawrence, 37. 
 
 River, Shelldrake, 54. 
 
 River, Thunder, 54. 
 
 Rivers, Some Labrador, 220-250. 
 
 Riviere Blanche, 53. 
 
 Riviere Du Docteur, 245, 246. 
 
 Robes noirs, Les, see Priests. 
 
 Robin (Planesticus migratorius), 14, 30, i7- 
 
 Ross, Dr., 42. 
 
 Ruffed grouse, Drumming of, 08, 99- 
 
 Sails, Dyed, 105. 
 Saint Cuthbert, 159- 
 
 259 
 
INDEX 
 
 Salmon, 50, 221-226. 
 
 Salmon-fisher's house, 113, 170. 
 
 Salmon, Migration of, 223-225. 
 
 Salmon Nets, 221, 222, 224. 
 
 Salmon, Yearly catch of, 225. 
 
 Sand dunes, 125, 126, 162. 
 
 Sandpiper, Spotted (Actitis macularia), 107. 
 
 Saxifrage, Mountain (Saxifraga oppositifolia), 17. 
 
 Scoter, Surf (Oidemia perspicillata) , 193. 
 
 Sea-birds, Extermination of, 158-160. 
 
 Sea-pigeon, see Guillemot, Black. 
 
 Seals, 123, 134, 227. 
 
 Selous, Edmund, 97, 193, 195, 196. 
 
 Seal Rock, in. 
 
 Seven Islands, 36, 42. 
 
 Sexual selection, 89, 97. 
 
 Shechootai, see Cloud-berry. 
 
 Skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), 12. 
 
 Sleeping-bag, 107. 
 
 Smolt, 224. 
 
 Snow, 11, 14, 19, 21, 23, 30, 50, 114, 235, 237. 
 
 Snowberry (Chiogenes hispidula), 16. 
 
 Snow bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis), 14, 30, 132. 
 
 Snow-shoes, 173. 
 
 Sparrow, Fox (Passer ella iliaca), 14, 30, 80, 107, 114, 246- 
 
 248. 
 
 Sparrow, Lincoln's (Melospiza lincolni), 14, 32. 
 Sparrow, Tree (Spizella monticola), 114. 
 Sparrow, White-crowned (Zonotrichia leucophrys}, 14, 114. 
 Sparrow, White-throated (Zonotrichia albicollis), 14, 30, 
 
 107, 114, 132. 
 Sphagnum, 15, 25, 231. 
 Spring, A Labrador, 11-35. 
 
 260 
 
INDEX 
 
 Spruce, Black (Picea mariana), 15, 210, 215, 216, 217. 
 
 Spruce, Red (Picea rubra), 15, 217. 
 
 Spruce, White (Picea canadensis), 15, 124, 216, 217. 
 
 Stearns, W. A., 239. 
 
 Strathcona, Lord, 174. 
 
 Sun-baths, 35. 
 
 Submersion of the land, 48, 49. 
 
 Swallow, Bank (Riparia riparia), 108, 109. 
 
 Swallow, Tree (Iridoprocne bicolor), 162. 
 
 Temperature, 24, 26, 34. 
 
 Tern, Caspian (Sterna caspia), 125. 
 
 Tern, Common (Sterna hirundo), 122. 
 
 Thayer, A. H., on Concealing-coloration, 89. 
 
 Thrush, Hermit (Hylocichla guttata pallasii), 30, 80, 132. 
 
 Tickle, 50, 121. 
 
 Toads, Trilling of, 17, 18. 
 
 Traps, 133, 243. 
 
 Trees, Some Labrador, 206-219. 
 
 Tremblay, Dr. J. E., 104. 
 
 Trout, 220, 227. 
 
 Tundra, see Bog. 
 
 Turner, L. M., 99. 
 
 Village, An Acadian, 64-82. 
 
 Violet, White (Viola incognita), 20. 
 
 Wallace, Dillon, 150. 
 Walrus, 41, 108. 
 
 Warbler, Black-poll (Dendroica striata), 30, 31. 
 Warbler, Magnolia (Dendroica magnolia), 21, 31, 238. 
 Warbler, Nashville (Vermivora rubricapilla) , 31. 
 Warbler, Wilson's (Wilsonia pusilla), 31, 49. 
 261 
 
INDEX 
 
 Watcheeshoo, 119. 
 
 Whale Factory, 38. 
 
 Whales, 50, 51. 
 
 Wilson, J. A., 46, 149, 179. 
 
 Whitbourne, 33. 
 
 Willow (Salix groenlandica, S. vestita, S. anglorum, S. 
 
 Candida}, n, 20. 
 Wing, Bastard, Use of, 188, 189. 
 Wings and feet in the air and under water, 180-205. 
 Wood pewee (Myiochanes virens}, 26. 
 Wood-pulp, 38. 
 Wren, Winter (Nannus hiemalis), 32. 
 
 262