The following papers bearing upon the natural history of the Lower Provinces are selected from several read by the Author before the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science. The Institution referred to, of which the Author has had the honour of being a Member since its inauguration in 1863 (latterly a Vice-President), has done much in exposition of the resources and physical features of the colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and the Bermudas under the able management of the President, Mr. John M. Jones, F.L.S. The contributions of this careful observer to. the natural history of the latter islands, comprised in “ The Naturalist in Bermuda/'* and in several more recent notices, have been recognised as most valuable, both as a compendium of the Bermudan indigenous and permanent Fauna and Flora, and also for the observations therein contained on the migration of North American birds, and on meteorological subjects. The Society owes no less of its success to the indefatigable labours of Dr. J. Bernard Gilpin, M.E.C.S., Vice-President, whose papers on the food fishes of Nova Scotia have attracted much attention amongst American naturalists. To this gentleman I am indebted for the scientific descriptions of the game fish found in this work.

“The Naturalist in Bermuda,” Reeves & Turner, 238, Strand, 1859.

ON THE NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS IN THE FOREST.

In one of the most attractive of the works of Humboldt, entitled “Views of Nature,”—a collection of thoughts and personal observations in connection with some of the grandest objects of nature in various parts of the world, visited by the great naturalist—appears an interesting fragment, called “The Nocturnal Life of Animals in the Primeval Forest,” suggesting to me comparative remarks on animal life in our own sombre woodlands.

The great writer, in the commencement of this chapter, describes the scene of his observations, coupled with some decisive remarks of his own on the nature of a primeval forest, which I think it well to introduce here. The scene is a boundless forest district which, in the torrid zone of South America, connects the river basins of the Orinoco and the Amazon. “This region,” says Humboldt, “deserves, in the strictest sense of the term, to be called a primeval forest—a term that in recent times has been so frequently misapplied. Primeval (or primitive), as applied to a forest, a nation, or a period of time, is a word of rather indefinite signification, and generally but of relative import. If every wild forest, densely covered with trees on which man has never laid his destroying hand, is to be regarded as a primitive forest, then the phenomenon is common to many parts, both of the temperate and the frigid zones. If, however, this character consists in impenetrability, through which it is impossible to clear with the axe between trees measuring from 8 to 12 feet in diameter, a path of any length, primitive forests belong exclusively to tropical regions. This impenetrability is by no means, as is often erroneously supposed in Europe, always occasioned by the interlaced climbing ‘lianes,’ or creeping plants, for these often constitute but a very small portion of the underwood. The chief obstacles are the shrub-like plants which fill up every space between the trees in a zone where all vegetable forms have a tendency to become arborescent.”

Now, our North American fir forests—especially in districts where woods predominate, and the growth of timber is large—have eo frequently (generally) been termed “primeval,” that we are bound to inquire into the justice of Humboldt’s very decisive statement of his own views of the etymology of the word. He claims the title for the South American forest from its impenetrability, and not from, what would seem to me-a much more distinguishing feature, the enormous diameter and age of its mighty trees. In regard to the latter attribute, we should be compelled to cede the appellation as inapplicable to our own woods, for, from the natural duration of life of our timber trees—even the giant “Pinus strobus” rarely showing over 1000 annular rings in section—the oldest members of the family of North American conifers cannot look back with those ancient trees which by some have been placed coeval with the builders of the pyramids. Still, as it is evident that in the heart of the great fir forests of the North, even in many wooded portions of this Province, the hand of man has never stirred to remove the existing giants, whilst the bones of their ancestors lie mouldering and moss-covered beneath, I cannot see why they do not m^rit the term primeval— not in Yon Humboldt’s acceptation, but according to the ordinary recognition of its meaning, and as “original, such as was at first,” says Johnson.

To return to the subject more immediately before us. Humboldt next introduces a beautiful and eloquent description of the night life of creatures in the forest by the Orinoco—the wild cries of a host of apes and monkeys, terrified at the uproar occasioned by the jaguar pursuing crowds of peccaries and tapirs, which burst through the dense underwood with tremendous crashing; the voices of communities of birds, aroused by the long-continued conflict beneath, and the general commotion produced amongst the whole animal world, rendering sleep impossible of attainment on stormy nights, on which, especially, these carnivals appeared to be most frequent.

What a contrast is presented on entering the dreamy solitudes of the North American pine forest—sombre though it may be, but yet most attractive to the lover of nature—in the perfect harmony of its mysterious gloom and silence with the life of its animal tenants, their retiring and lonely habits, and their often plaintive and mournful voices ! Our perceptions of the harmonies of nature as inseparably connect the mournful hooting of the great owl with the glooms of the black spruce swamp, as we can the tangled wildness and tropical vegetation of the South American forest with the discordant notes of its gaudy parrots, and the screams of its monkeys. Although almost all of our mammalia are nocturnal in their habits, and many of them beasts of prey, their nightly wanderings and strife with their victims are conducted in the most orderly manner, compared with the scenes we have referred to. Quiet, noiseless stealth is the characteristic feature of all animal life in the forest; mutual distrust of the same species, and ever-present tendency to alarm predominate even in the wildest districts, where the sight of man is unknown, or at least unremembered. At the slightest sound the ruminants and rodents cease feeding, remaining motionless either from fear or instinct; the rabbit or hare thus frequently avoiding detection, whilst the moose can so silently withdraw if suspecting an enemy, that I have on more than one occasion remained hours together on the stillest night, believing the animal to be standing within a few yards in a neighbouring thicket, to which he had advanced in answer to the call, and found at length that he had suspiciously retreated. The great creature had retired, worming his huge bulk and ponderous antlers through the entangled swamp, without detection of the straining ear to which the nibbling of a porcupine at the bark of a tree in the same grove was plainly audible.

The habits and sounds of animals at night are especially familiar to the hunter when calling the moose in the clear moonlight nights, of September and October,—the season when this animal, forgetting his usual caution and taciturnity, finds a voice to answer the plaintive call of his mate, and often advances to sure destruction, within a few yards of his concealed foe. As the sun lowers beneath the horizon, and twilight is giving place to the uncertain light of the moon, we listen between the intervals of the Indian’s calls (about twenty minutes is generally allowed) to the sounds indicating the movements of nocturnal animals and birds. The squirrels which have raced around us and angrily chirruped defiance from the surrounding trees, all through the twilight, have at last scuttled, one and all, into their holes and fastnesses, and the small birds drop, one by one—the latest being the common robin, who is loth to leave his rich pickings of ripe berries on the upland barren, on which he revels ere taking his annual departure—into the bushes. No longer annoyed by the multitudinous hum and bustle of diurnal animal life, the ear is now relieved, and anxiously criticises the nocturnal sounds which take their place. A little pattering amongst the leaves, and cracking of small sticks (often mistaken by the ambushed hunter when listening for sounds of moose, for the cautious movements of the latter animal), attests the presence abroad of the porcupine, come forth from rocky cavern or hollow tree to revel on berries, nuts, and the rind of young trees. A perfect “ monitor ” in his coat of protecting armour, he fears neither the talons of the swooping owl, or the spring of the wild cat. Woe to the peace of mind and bodily comfort of his adventurous assailant, for the barbed quills, once entering the skin, slowly worm their way through the system, and produce lingering suffering, if not death. Even the moose is lamed, if not for life, for a tedious time, by accidentally running over a “maduis” as the Indian calls him. The porcupine, is essentially nocturnal in its habits, retiring at sunrise to its den to sleep off its midnight revels, till the “knell of parting day” is again tolled through the arches of the forest by the solemn war-cry of the horned owl.

All the strigidai are now busily engaged in hunting mice, shrews, and even hares, through the darkest swamps, and uttering at intervals their melancholy hootings. The call of the cat-owl, horned, or eagle-owl of America (B. Yirginianus), is one of the most impressive sounds of the forest at night. Coming on the ear of the sojourner in the woods, most frequently just before daylight appears, and emanating from the dark recesses of a grove of hemlock spruce, from whose massive stems the sound re-echoes through the forest, the voice of this bird is eminently suggestive of most melancholy solitude and ghostliness, and one instinctively awakens the dying embers of the camp fire. Another sound uttered by this bird on its nocturnal hunt is positively startling—a maniacal yell, terminating in mocking laughter, which it is hard to believe can proceed from the throat of a bird.

I believe there is nothing of its own size that this fierce, powerful bird will not venture to attack under cover of the night. The poor hare constantly falls a prey; the farmer has a long score to settle with it, frequently losing his poultry—even geese—through its nocturnal visits. An Indian recently told me that the owl had carried off a favourite little dog that was of great value in hunting for partridges. Whilst in confinement, these birds will prey on one another.

The great homed owl is not so exclusively nocturnal as some of the other members of the family. I have frequently started them sitting on a branch exposed to open daylight, and noticed that they were perfectly sure of flight, and readily found their way to another hiding place. Passing the dark wooded banks of the Shubenacadie in a canoe, I have seen great numbers of them sitting in the overhanging spruces and hemlocks.

Sometimes a curious whining sound, uttered at intervals, is noticeable at night in the woods. It is the note of the " ivehwaetch/’ as the Indian calls it—Tengmalm’s owl.

The answer of the bull moose to the Indian’s plaintive ringing call on his cone trumpet of birch bark, if the animal is distant, is freely and quickly returned. Resembling, at first, the chopping of an axe far away in the woods, the sound, when nearer, becomes more distinctly guttural. It is well expressed by the monosyllable “Quoh!” uttered by the Indian through the bark cone.

Under the most favouring circumstances of a bright moon, and the death-like stillness of a clear frosty atmosphere, the too sanguine hunter is repeatedly doomed to disappointment; the animal’s appreciation of his own language frequently proves the best master of the craft to be but a sorry imitator. The moose on approaching the ambush, the imagined locality of his hoped-for mate, at length comes to a dead stand, maintaining the same attitude for sometimes a couple of hours without an audible movement; when the impatient hunter once more ventures to allure him by another call, he is off in silent though hasty retreat.

As an instance, however, of departure from their usual cautious and quiet comportment at night on the part of these animals, I will introduce here one of my “Sporting Adventures,” published some years since, and what I heard one cold October night in a very wild and (then) almost unhunted portion of the country.

“Though it was very cold, and my damped limbs were stiffening under me from crouching so long in the same posture, I could not but enjoy the calmness and beauty of the night. The moon was very low, but the columns of a magnificent aurora, shooting up to the zenith, threw a mellow light on the barren, which, covered by mist as by a sheet, appeared like a moonlit lake, and the numerous little clusters of dwarfish spruce as islands. We had not heard a moose answer to our call for nearly an hour, and were preparing to move, when the* distant sound of a falling tree struck our ears. It appeared to come from the dim outline of forest which skirted the barren on our left, and at a great distance.

“Down we all drop again in our deeply impressed couches to listen. The sounds indicate that moose are travelling through the woods and close to the edge of the barren. Presently the foremost moose is abreast of our position, and gives vent to a wild and discordant cry. This is the signal for a general uproar amongst the procession of moose, for a whole troop of them are following at long and cautious intervals.

“The timber is crashing loudly opposite to our position, and distant reports show that more are still coming on from the same direction. A chorus of bellowings respond to the plaintive wail of the cow.

The branches are broken more fiercely, and horns are rapidly drawn across stems as if to whet them for the combat. Momentarily I expect to hear the crashing of rival antlers. One by one the bulls pass our position, and I long to get up and dash into the dark line of forest, and with a chance shot scatter the procession; but to do so would entail wanton disturbance of the country ; so we patiently wait till the last moose has passed.

“Never before had I heard the calmness of the night in the Nova Scotia forest so disturbed ; they had passed as a storm; and now the barren and the surrounding country were once more enveloped in the calm repose of an autumnal night, unbroken, save by the chirrup of the snake in the swamp.”

Of all premonitors of the approach of a storm, the night voices of the barred owl (Syrnium nebulosum) and the loon are the surest. “The ‘coogognesk' is noisy again; more rain cornin’,” says the Indian, and whether we hear the unwonted chorus of wild hootings soon after sundown or at daybreak, the storm will surely come within twelve hours. Such is likewise the case in summer, when from our fishing camps we hear the plaintive, quavering cry of the great northern diver echoing over the calm surface, and amongst the groups of islets of the forest lakes, and quickly repeated without intermission, during the night. In the autumn, in close damp weather, and especially before rain, the little tree frog (Hyla squir-rellus), rejoicing in the prospect of a relaxed skin, pipes vigorously his cheerful note throughout the night, and the Brek! B-r-reck! of the wood-frog (Rana sylvatica) is heard from pools of water standing in hollows in the forest. A sound that has always been pleasant to my ears when lying amongst the low bushes on the open barren, is the Chink! chink! chink! of the little chain mouse as he gambols around. It is a faint silvery tinkling, as might be produced by shaking the links of a small chain, whence his common name.

The little Acadian owl, commonly called the “saw-whet” (Ulula Acadica), is not uncommon in our woods, uttering morning and evening its peculiar and (until known) mysterious tinkling sound from the thickest groves of spruces. In one of these I once captured a specimen just about sundown, when proceeding to a barren to call moose. The Indian made a noose on the top of a long wattle, and after a little manoeuvring, during which the bird kept hovering round us, hissing and setting up its wings and feathers in great anger, he got it over its neck and secured it without injury. This little owl, just turning the scale at two ounces, will actually attack and kill a rat.

Wherever there is mystery there lies a charm; and to this effect expresses himself Mr. Gosse, who thus speaks of his acquaintance with the cry of the saw-whet in his “Romance of Natural History: ”

“In the forests of Lower Canada and the New England States, I have often heard, in spring a mysterious sound, of which, to this day, I do not know the author. Soon after night sets in, a metallic sound is heard from the most sombre forest swamps, where the spruce and the hemlock give a peculiar density to the wood, known as the black growth. The sound comes up clear and regular, like the measured tinkle of a cow bell, or gentle strokes on a piece of metal, or the action of a file upon a saw. It goes on, with intervals of interruption, throughout the hours of darkness. People attribute it to a bird which they call the whetsaw, but nobody pretends to have seen it, so that this can only be considered conjecture, though a highly probable one. The monotony and pertinacity of this note had a strange charm for me, increased, doubtless, by the uncertainty of its origin. Night after night it would be heard in the same spot, invariably the most sombre and gloomy recesses of the black timbered woods. I occasionally watched for it, resorting to the woods before sunset, and waiting till darkness ; but, strange to say, it refused to perform under such conditions. The shy and recluse bird, if bird it was, was, doubtless, aware of the intrusion, and on its guard. Once I heard it under peculiarly wild circumstances. I was riding late at night, and, just at midnight, came to a very lonely part of the road, where the black forest rose on either side. Everything was profoundly still, and the measured tramp of my horse’s feet on the frozen road was felt as a relief to the deep and oppressive silence; when suddenly, from the sombre woods, rose the clear metallic tinkle of the whetsaw. The sound, all unexpected as it was, was very striking, and though, it was bitterly cold, I drew up for some time to listen to it. In the darkness and silence of the hour, that regularly measured sound, proceeding, too, from so gloomy a spot, had an effect on my mind solemn and unearthly, yet not unmixed with pleasure.”

There is a bird that, long after sundown, and when the moose-caller begins to feel chilled by long watching on the frosty barren, will rush past him with such velocity as to leave no time to catch a certain view of its size or form. It passes close to the ground, and with the whizzing sound of an arrow. Almost every night, whilst thus watching, I have noticed this bird; can it be the night hawk?

But October is late for so tender a bird; the latest day in which I have observed it in Nova Scotia, was the 28th September.

Another mysterious sound which many of the Indian hunters connect with superstition, and attribute to spirits of the Orpheonistic description, is that curious, rushing sound of music—an indescribable melodious rustling in the calm atmosphere of a still October night, with which the ear of the moose-hunter becomes so well acquainted. Most probably the cause exists in the tension of the nerves of that organ.

The fierce yell of the lucifee, and the short sharp bark of the fox, are often heard in wild parts of the country: they are both in pursuit of the unfortunate hare, which falls a frequent prey to so many of the carnivorae and raptores. I once heard the startling cry of the former close to my head, whilst reposing in the open, after a night’s moose-calling away from camp. Its bounds upon its prey, having stealthily crept to within sight, are prodigious: I have measured them as over twenty feet in the snow.

I have always noticed that in the small hours of the morning there appears to be a general cessation of movement of every living creature in the woods. Often as I have strolled from camp into the moonlight at this time, I never could detect the slightest sound— even the owls seemed to have retired. The approach of dawn, however, seems to call forth fresh exertions of the nocturnal animals in quest of food, and all the cries and calls are renewed—continuing till the first signs of Aurora send the owls flitting back into the thick tops of the spruces, and call forth the busy squirrels and small birds to their daily occupation.

Once, and only once, did I hear the little red squirrel utter his wrathful chirrup at night—a bad sign, say the Indians; they firmly believe that it prognosticates the death of one of their friends. Neither does the chip-munk or striped ground squirrel come out at night; the only member of the family of nocturnal habits is the flying squirrel, a rare but most beautiful little creature. Lying in an open camp, I once saw its form sail in a curved line from tree to tree in the moonlight.

Of night songsters amongst our small birds we have few examples. The whip-poor-will is our only systematic nightingale, if we may call him so. Arriving in June, and choosing the pleasantest retreat, in copses, by picturesque intervales, and generally preferring the neighbourhood of man, the plaintive song of this bird is strongly associated with the charms of a summer’s evening in the country.

Occasionally, however, the white-throated sparrow, or the common peabiddy bird (F. Pennsylvanica) strikes up his piping note at various times of the night, and is often heard when the surrounding woods are suddenly lighted up by the application of fresh fuel to the camp fire. The Indians say that he sings every hour. The exquisite flute-like warblings of the hermit thrush (T. solitarius) are often prolonged far into the fine nights of early summer. As a general impression, however, the pleasing notes of song birds are foreign to the interior solitudes of the great fir forest, whose gloom is appropriately enhanced by the wilder and more mournful voices of predatory birds and animals. With these imperfect remarks, I close the present sketch on the night life of animals in the woods.

The following is a fragment of a Paper read by the Author before the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science on Acclimatisation. A large proportion of the matter contained therein has been omitted as irrelative to the objects of this work.

ACADIAN ACCLIMATISATION

Having thus adverted to the development of “Applied Natural History ” in other parts of the world as a practical science, and the satisfactory results which have already attended such efforts, we now come to consider the proper subject of this paper—the question of Acclimatisation as applicable to Nova Scotia. I have so far drawn attention to the advances made by the antipodal colonists in this direction, to show how the objections of distance, expense, and uncertainty of results, have all been put aside for ends thought worthy of such sacrifices. But Australia was a country craving animal immigration, her large and wealthy population demanding many of the absent table luxuries of the old world, and her youth eager for the time when the boundless forests and grassy plains should abound with the stag or roe, in place of the monotonous marsupials which as yet had afforded the only material for the chase. In Atlantic America, on the contrary, instead of having to supplant the indigenous animals, we possess, in a state of nature, some of the noblest forms of animal life, which, no longer required to supply the aboriginal Indians with their sole means of subsistence, may be called on, with that moderation which should always characterise a civilised people, to afford both the invigorating pleasures of sport and luxuries for the market. Every stream and lake abounds with trout, and there are but few rivers from Cape Sable to the Labrador which the salmon does not annually attempt to ascend.

What, then, is to be desired ? Has not America, receiving from the east all those useful animals which accompany man in his migrations, and which, returning to a state of nature in the plains of Mexico and South America, have multiplied so greatly as to afford a staple product for exportation, giving all imaginable luxuries to the new-coming nations in the produce of her forests, prairies, rivers, and sea coasts ? Yes, but the gift has been abused. . It is sad to contemplate the wanton destruction of game and game fish throughout the northern continent since its first settlement by Europeans : many animals, now on the verge of extinction, driven off their still large domains, not primarily by the approach of civilisation, but by ruthless, wholesale, and wanton modes of destruction. “One invariable peculiarity of the American people,” says the author of “The Game Fish of the North,” “is that they attack, overturn, and annihilate, and then laboriously reconstruct. Our first farmers chopped down the forests and shade trees, took crop after crop of the same kind from the land, exhausted the soil, and made bare the country; they hunted and fished, destroying first the wild animals, then the birds, and finally the fish, till in many places these ceased utterly from the face of the earth ; and then, when they had finished their work, that race of gentlemen moved west to renew the same course of destruction. After them came the restorers ; they manured the land, left it fallow, put in practice the rotation of crops, planted shade and fruit trees, discovered that birds were useful in destroying insects and worms, passed laws to protect them where they were not utterly extinct, as with the pinnated grouse of Pennsylvania and Long Island, and will, I predict, ere long re-stock the streams, rivers, and ponds, with the best of the fish that once inhabited them.”

A home question for our subject would be,—In the hands of which class of men does this colony now find itself ? And I fear the unhesitating answer of the impartial stranger and visitor would be, that in all regarding the preservation of our living natural resources, we were in the hands of the destroyers. The course of destruction so ably depicted by the author quoted, is being prosecuted throughout the length and breadth of Nova Scotia, and the settlers of this province, blind to their own interests, careless of their children’s, and utterly regardless of restraint imposed by the laws of the country, worse than useless because not carried out, are bringing about the final depopulation of our large wild areas of land and water. It really becomes a question as to whether late interference shall arrest the tide of destruction ere the entire extermination of fish and game shall bring the country to a sense of its loss, and [finally to a wish for their reproduction.

In such a state of affairs, provincial acclimatisation would prove an empty speculation, for any new animal or bird introduced into our woodlands requiring freedom from molestation for a term of years, would be quickly hunted down and destroyed.

Leaving, however, these important questions of protection or extinction of already-existing indigenous species in the hands of those who hold the means of ordering these matters, I will now call your attention to what might be done to increase our stock of useful wild or domestic animals, birds or fish, could they be ensured the necessary wardship. We will consider first whether our large woodland districts demand and would bear foreign colonisation, and for what types their physical conformation seems best adapted.

Even in its most undisturbed and wildest depths the North American forest has always been noted for its solitude ; the meaning being the great disproportion of the animal to the vegetable kingdom. It seems as if nature had exhausted her energies in shading the ground with the dense forest and the rank vegetation which everywhere seizes on the rough surface beneath. It is impossible to say to what extent animal life might have once existed in the primeval forest; but no one who has taken a day’s walk in the woods, either near to or far from the haunts of man, can fail being impressed with the apparent absence of animal life. The European visitor, in a suburban ramble through the bush, wonders at the scarcity of game birds, rabbits, or hares, but is astonished when told that in the deepest recesses of the wild country he will see but little increase of their numbers. A canoe paddled through lake after lake of our great highways of water communication, will startle but a few pairs or broods of exceedingly timid waterfowl, where in Europe they would literally swarm. Surely, then, here is room for the work of acclimatisation, in a country where so much toil is undergone in the often fruitless pursuit of sport.

The undergrowth of our wild forest lands, the field for acclimatisation which we have under immediate consideration, consists of an immense variety of shrubs, under-shrubs, and herbs, annual or perennial. The under-shrubs generally bear the various descriptions of berries, and with great profusion. There are, here and there, wild pastures, or intervales, by the edge of sluggish water, but they bear but a small proportion to the woodlands ; the bogs and barrens produce moss in abundance, and of the kind found in every part of the world where the reindeer is indigenous, or has been successfully introduced, as in Iceland.

We find, accordingly, that our largest ruminant, the moose-deer, is, in the strictest sense of the word, a wood-eater ; whilst our other animal representing this class, the American reindeer, or cariboo, is found in those portions of the province where large and seldom disturbed plains and bogs afford him his favourite moss, the lichen rangiferinus. As amongst the larger animals, ruminants alone offer a selection for introduction into a forest country with the physical attributes of Nova Scotia, we may ask if there is any other animal of the deer tribe which might be successfully acclimatised here. The answer comes through careful consideration of the fauna and flora of other regions compared with our own. The field naturally presenting itself for this research lies in the forest districts of America further west, and in northern Europe, 'which, under similar climatic influences, presents a strong analogy to this portion of the globe, especially on its western seaboard ; the forest trees and shrubs, the larger animals, the birds and the fish of Norway and Sweden, are almost reproduced in British North America; indeed, distinction of species in many cases is far from established.

The common deer (Cervus Virginianus), then, of Maine and the Canadas, and more recently of New Brunswick by spontaneous acclimatisation, or perhaps rather through the instrumentality of the wolf, appears to be perfectly adapted for an existence in the Nova Scotian woods—a graceful species, but little inferior to the red deer of Europe, affording the excellent venison with "which the New York and Boston markets are so well supplied. The climate of Nova Scotia, allowing so little snow to accumulate in the woods until the close of the winter, would prove a great safeguard against the wholesale destruction with which it meets in Maine and New Brunswick, where it is continually in a most helpless condition from the depth of snow throughout the winter. Indeed, it is already with us, for a small herd of healthy animals may now be seen at Mr. Downs’ gardens, to whom the country is already indebted for many an unassisted attempt at real practical acclimatisation.

It is well known that both the buffalo and the elk (C. wapiti) formerly had an extensive range to the north-east. The latter animal, now mainly found on the Yellowstone and Upper Missouri rivers, once inhabited the forests of the Saguenay. Baird says it has a greater geographical distribution than any other American deer; and, according to Richardson, it can exist as far as 57 deg. north. Doubtless it would thrive in the Nova Scotian or New Brunswick forests. The wapiti thrives in the Zoological Society’s gardens in England, where it annually reproduces; and large herds of this noble animal are being transported from America to the north of Italy by His Majesty King Victor Emmanuel. Thirty were recently awaiting departure from New York at the same time.

The only other ruminant on the list of this order, indigenous to climates similar to our own, is the hardy little roe-deer or roebuck, common in the beech woods of. northern Europe. I am confident that this animal would thrive in the extensive beech forests of Cumberland ; and as it seems to live and thrive close to civilisation, it would find ample room and food in our suburban copses and uncleared barrens. Descending in the scale of animal classification, the next selections for consideration of a future Acclimatisation Society in this country, as adapted to live and multiply and become profitable in the woodlands, seem to be offered in the prolific order Rodentia, of which many families are already indigenous—the squirrel, beaver, porcupine, and American hare, commonly known as the rabbit. The first of these might receive an interesting accession by the introduction of the black and grey squirrels of Canada and the States ; the beaver, porcupine, and woodchuck, are all prized by the hunter as food, lacking the supply of venison, and the hare, persecuted though it be by human, furred, and feathered foes, is still so prolific and common, as to form a great portion of the winter subsistence of both settlers and the poor of this city. Indeed, when we enumerate its enemies of the animal creation, which almost altogether live upon it, the lynx and wild cat, the foxes, the horned owl, the marten, and the weasel, and take into consideration the numbers which are taken by man, by snaring them in their easily discovered paths to and from their feeding grounds in the swamps, it is wonderful that they still remain so plentiful. A great objection to the flesh of the American hare, however is its insipidity and toughness, except when taken young. Ear more delicate and esteemed is that of the Spanish, or domestic, and common wild English rabbit (Lepus cuniculus), and it would seem that both are of a sufficiently hardy constitution to stand the rigours of our winter. The former is already an acclimatised inhabitant of the sandbanks of Sable Island, according to Dr. Gilpin, having been introduced by the Honourable Michael Wallace, and increased amazingly, affording the islanders many a fresh dinner when salt junk is plenty and fresh beef scarce. No easier experiment could be made in applied natural history than the extensive breeding of the common grey rabbit by some resident near town, whose premises bordered on uncleared bush or scrub. To commence, a large bank of loosely piled earth and stone might be made, here and there perforated by a length or so of suitable tubing, such as used for drains, the bank enclosed by wire netting, and a few pairs of rabbits turned in. They would soon tunnel the bank in all directions, and as the families increased they might be allowed to escape into the neighbourhood. A fair warren once established would be the means of a quick colonisation of the surrounding country. And the true rabbit, living so constantly under ground, would enjoy much greater security from animals and birds of prey than his indigenous congeners.

Still keeping in view the acclimatisation of creatures intended to exist in a state of nature,' and not for domestication—a division of the subject which appears to be most feasible and best adapted to the condition of this province—let us next turn to the birds.

We have already existing in our woods as game birds, two species of Tetraonidae—the T. umbellus, or the ruffed grouse, and the T. Canadensis, or spruce partridge—as permanent residents ; and, as summer visitors, the two North American Scolopacidas, the woodcock and snipe. There is but one representative of the Phasianida3 in North America, the only gift of the new to the old world, whence the domestic race has sprung, and that is the wild turkey. It certainly would appear that our large woodland solitudes offer especial facilities for the introduction of some new members of the grouse family, birds especially formed for existence in cold climates. Formerly common in the Scotch pine forests, now only to be met with in abundance in the north of Europe, in Norway, Sweden, and Russia, the magnificent capercailzie, or cock of the wood (T. urogallus), equalling, in the case of the male bird, the turkey in size, presents so tempting an experiment that it should be almost introduced regardless of expense. A bird inhabiting so widely the fir woods of subarctic Europe and Asia, would surely succeed if transplanted to the corresponding region of North America. It appears to feed exclusively on pine shoots. Mr. Bernard, author of a recent work called “Sport in Norway,” says it is still common in all large forest districts in that country. I believe this bird loves solitude, and surely he would find it, if essential to his existence, in some of the great expanses of coniferous forest which still prevail in most portions of Nova Scotia. Next in size and beauty might be selected the black game (T. tetrix) of the wilder portions of the British Isles, and numerous in Norway, where it is stated they not unfrequently cross with the capercailzie. This bird is known to subsist on the buds of the alder and birch, on the berries of the whortleberry, blueberry, and juniper, and on the bog cranberry, all of which are so abundant in our woods, and of almost identical species. A successful introduction of this bold, handsome grouse, would add great interest to the wild sports on the open barrens. The hazel hen of northern Europe (T. bonasia), reported to be the best fleshed bird of the grouse tribe, is another association of a country in which spruce woods abound. It is exceedingly like our birch partridge in appearance— a little smaller, and wanting the ruff; like the latter, also, its flesh is white. There are many other northern grouse in both the old and new worlds, but none that I should import as so likely to succeed, and as such valuable acquisitions, as the capercailzie and the blackcock.

With the circumstance of the introduction and breeding of the English and gold and silver pheasants at Mr. Downs’ establishment we are all acquainted; and a most interesting fact is the well-ascertained capability of the English pheasant to live and find its own subsistence in our woods through a rigorous winter, whilst the latter birds, left out at night by accident, have apparently suffered little inconvenience by roosting in a fir tree, exposed to a strong wind, accompanied by the intense cold of —16°. Why should not this experiment be continued?

It is to be feared that those troops of little songsters with which the fields of England abound, and which have been carefully acclimatised in Australia for old association sake, would die on the first near approach of the mercury to zero. Those that are imported, comprising thrushes, skylarks, finches, &c., are closely kept within doors. Mr. Downs has two pairs of the European jackdaw, which he hopes will increase in his neighbourhood. These interesting and garrulous little members of the family Corvidae, whose young every English boy covets to obtain and educate to the acquisition of rudimentary speech, would find but few ivy-mantled towers or venerable steeples in which to build their nests; but when Gilbert White informs us that for want of church steeples they will build under ground in rabbit burrows, the new-comers would not be long in devising a remedy for the defect. The common English house-sparrow, thoroughly acclimatised, and abundant in New York, would, doubtless, do as well in this neighbourhood.

As a second consideration in connection with this wide subject, let us inquire whether any good purpose could be answered by an attempt at domestication or semi-domestication of our indigenous ruminants, the moose and the cariboo. When we consider that these two species are found throughout the old world, under the same conditions of climate and vegetation which attend them in the new, it appears unaccountable that we have no historic records of the subjugation of the cariboo for domestic purposes by the primitive Indians of the northern coasts of America, as this animal has been applied from time immemorial by the Lapps.

An eminent naturalist, Dr. Gray, in delivering his address in the Nat. Hist. Section at the late meeting of the British Association at Bath, thus alludes to the latter fact:—“The inhabitants of the arctic or sub-arctic regions of Europe and Asia have partially domesticated the reindeer; and either Asiatics have peculiar aptitude for domesticating animals, or the ruminants of that part of the world are peculiarly adapted for domestication;” and he then instances a variety of exemplifications, in their having domesticated the yak in the mountain regions of Thibet and Siberia, the camel and dromedary in central Asia, in southern Asia the zebra, and in the Malayan archipelago various species of buffalo and wild cattle. It may be stated, that modern discovery has placed the original home of the reindeer in the high Alps of central Asia, whence these animals, followed by their ever-accompanying human associates, the Lapps, migrated to the north-west of Europe. As a beast of burden, however, to traverse those treeless wastes answering to the snow-covered barrens of Lapland, the dog seems to have answered all the purposes of the Esquimaux and other arctic-American tribes, whilst in more southerly and wooded regions, a sledge-drawing animal would have no scope or sphere of employment. And, viewing the animals in this light, the horse and the ox which have accompanied Europeans, have left do desideratum that could be supplied by either the moose or the cariboo. There are, however, several undoubted instances of the applicability of the moose to draught. A few years since a settler on the Guysboro’ road, named Carr, possessed a two-year old bull moose, which was perfectly tractable in harness. For a wager, he has been known to overtake and quickly distance the fastest trotting horse on the road, drawing his master in a sleigh, the guiding reins being fastened to a muzzle bound round the animal’s nose. Another instance was that of a very large moose kept by a doctor in Cape Breton, which he would invariably employ in preference to his horse when wishing to make a distant visit to a patient, and in the shortest time. It is very certain that in its youth the moose is one of the most tractable of animals ; but it is in the rutting season of the third year that the males first become unmanageable and dangerous.

A point, however, on which I would engage attention, is not the domestication of either of these animals in the state in which the ordinary domesticated animals are associated with us, but a possible state of semi-domestication, by which the moose might be caused to multiply on uncleared land, and regularly bred, fattened, and turned to profit without the smallest cost to the owner, except the expense of maintaining his enclosures in an efficient state of security. My attention was first drawn to this by reading an account of the successful breeding of the American elk (C. wapiti) by an American gentleman—a Mr. Stratton, of New York State. I quote from a letter dated January 12, 1859 :—

“My desire to keep and breed them, without their becoming a tax upon me, led to diligent inquiry in relation to what had been done in the way of their domestication. I procured, as far as possible, every paper, book, and document, which could give any light upon the subject. I wrote to every part of the country whence any information could be obtained, and opened a correspondence with those who had undertaken such an enterprise. The result of my efforts was simply this : nearly every one who had owned an elk was a gentleman amateur, and had left the care and direction to servants ; the bucks, not having been castrated at the proper age, had become unmanageable; and when the novelty of the attempt was over, the domestication in most cases was abandoned. But from my own inquiries, and a close personal observation of the habits of the animal, I believed that a different course would produce a more favourable result. The first requisite was a place to keep them in. Now, they had always lived in the woods, summer and winter : why not live in the forest again ? Acting upon this principle, I immediately set to work and fenced in about 150 acres of hill land, which was steep and stony, covered with brushwood, and entirely useless for agricultural purposes. In this lot I turned my elks, where they have been six years. In the meantime, I purchased two more does, and have reared eight fawns. Having emasculated the older bucks as fast as the younger ones became adults, I have now a herd so gentle, that a visitor at my farm would hardly imagine that their ancestors, only three generations back, were wild animals. And this has been done simply by visiting the park two or three times a week, and always carrying them an ear of corn, some little delicacy, or salt, and treating them with unvarying kindness.

“The facility for extending this business may easily be conceived. New York alone might support 100,000 elks on land where our domestic cattle could not subsist, furnishing an amount of venison almost incredible ; while the adjoining State of Pennsylvania, to say nothing of others, might sustain a still larger number without encroaching upon an acre of land now used for stock-rearing, or any other purpose connected with agriculture.”

Here, then, we have a modem precedent for an experiment which I am convinced would answer in the case of the moose, a still larger and more profitable animal than the wapiti. What an admirable opportunity for utilising those barren wastes which surround us ! Take for example that large triangular piece of waste country in the immediate vicinity of the city, commencing at Dartmouth, extending along the shores of the Basin on one side, bounded by the Dartmouth lakes on the other, and skirted by the railroad from Bedford to Grand Lake as its base. With the exception of a few clearings on the shores of the Basin, the whole of this is a wilderness, containing some 15,000 acres of wild, undulating land, with here and there thick spruce swamps, mossy bogs, and barrens covered with a young growth of birch, poplar, and all the food on which the moose delights to subsist. That they have an especial liking for this small district may be gathered from the fact that I have never known it as not containing two or three of these animals. There is no reason why an experimental farm, conducted on the principle indicated by Mr. Stratton, should not be able to breed and turn out in this district a very large number of moose, and in such a state of tameness, that they would be induced to remain within enclosed portions of the wilderness, furnishing, in proper season, a profitable supply of flesh for the market.

To the cariboo, on the other hand, these suggestions will not be applicable, as this animal requires, as a primary condition of its existence, a large and uninterrupted field for periodical migration.

As regards the introduction of new fish, a very good exchange might be made with the English Acclimatization Society, by sending the beautiful American brook trout (Salmo fontinalis), and receiving in return S. fario. Colonel Sinclair has several times drawn my attention to the suitableness of many of our rivers for the reception of the true British trout—a fish quite different in its habits to our migratory, deep-frequenting S. fontinalis.

The Shubenacadie, and other rivers, steadily flowing through alluvial flats (intervale), present frequent gravelly reaches, with patches of waving weed, and soft overhanging banks—just the counterpart of many English trout-streams. With no predatory fish to harass the trout, these waters at once suggest the introduction of S. fario, more particularly as they are not the resort of our own species. As an association, and for purposes of food, the common English stream-minnow might be profitably turned in at the same time.

Our grayling (S. Gloverii), (the former a misnomer), is a lake-trout. The true grayling (Thymallus), as well as the common English perch, would be desirable additions to our waters. Even in lakes where the trout has almost disappeared, I should hesitate to recommend the introduction of any of the family Esocidae, for fear of their spreading to damage more remunerative waters.

In conclusion, it is with the greatest pleasure that I welcome Colonel Sinclair’s proposal to form a Society for the artificial propagation of fish in this Province. The Americans are already earnestly endeavouring by this means to restore their desolate rivers; and with the support of the Association for Protection of Game and Fish, and the advice and the experience of the English pisciculturists, the greatest results may be obtained in water-farming a country so prolific of lakes and streams as is Nova Scotia.

AUDACITY OF THE BULL MOOSE IN THE CALLING SEASON.

The following instances of the recklessness which characterises the bull moose in the fall are authentic :—

A sportsman, accompanied by an Indian, was moose-calling on Mosher’s River, Nova Scotia, one morning in the autumn of 1867. They were on a barren, and near the margin of a heavy forest. A fine bull moose came up to the call, and fell to the Indian’s gun, when instantly another bull emerged from the woods, and charged at the prostrate animal. A second bullet brought him over, and he fell on the body of what had most probably been his foe of the season.

A settler in the backwoods going out one October evening to chop firewood near his shanty in the forest, heard a bull moose “handy” He returned for his gun, and, after a short stalk in the bushes, obtained a shot at the moose—an animal with superb antlers—and could distinctly see that he had hit him in the neck. There he stood for a considerable time, while the settler, who had only the one charge, lay in the bushes, and at length turned and leisurely walked away. The man was up betimes next morning, and away to the same spot. He saw blood; and, following the trail for a short distance, heard sounds indicating the presence of moose. Having some faint idea of calling, he put a piece of bark to his mouth, and gave the note of the bull. Answering at once, a fine moose came in view, when he fired, and this time prostrated the animal—the identical one shot the evening before. He recognised the horns, and the wound was in his neck.

Apropos of this subject, the following extracts from his note-book, kindly placed at my disposal by “The Old Hunter,” are highly interesting and illustrative. He says “ I left my camp on Lake Mooin (the lake of the bear), Liscome River, September, 1866, in company with Peter, Joe, and Stephen, as my Indian hunters, intending to cross the next lake to the southward in a canoe which we had there secreted. On arriving at the lake we found the wind so high that it was considered altogether unsafe to trust ourselves on its waters in our frail bark. About five o’clock the wind moderated, but as I still thought that we could not reach my old calling-ground on the opposite side before the decline of the sun, I determined to cross to a narrow neck of rocky barren distant from us by water some seven hundred yards. After various perils we reached the spot, disembarked amongst the rocks, fixed a place for the calling-ground should the night be calm, collected our bedding of spruce boughs picked in a neighbouring swamp, and, releasing our blankets from their cordings, prepared- for supper. Suddenly all was calm; the wind had gone down, and the western sky was tinged with the gorgeous colouring denoting a moose-caller’s delight—a calm and serene night. All at once a cracking of wood was heard away down on our side of the lake, and presently more noises, plainly determining the presence of moose thereabouts. A few minutes of hesitation, and I treed Peter to sound the love-note from aloft: and not long after he descried a moose at fully a mile’s distance coming to the edge of the forest. ’ The margin of the lake on our side had been burnt, and was barren of bush or tree except in a few spots. A few persuasive calls brought him out on the barren, from which, however, he soon returned to the cover of the green-woods—a fact, as we all knew, proving him to be either a coward or a beaten moose. We coaxed: he still came on, showing himself occasionally on the barren, though never answering, and at length was espied about three hundred yards off, peering around him and listening, his huge ears extended forwards to the utmost. We thought that he saw us, but he had cunning folks to deal with; we did not move or call. Down he came, making directly for us, now speaking for the first time. I was lying in his route, and, when distant about fifteen yards, I bowled over one of the finest and most cautious of his species I had ever met with. He was cast and butchered before the twilight faded.

“We supped, and that night lay replete; but my sleep not being of such a dead nature as that of my faithful followers, the crashings of trees and the bellowings of moose emanating from the same direction as that whence came the fallen monarch, struck frequently on my ears. At cock-crow I woke up the sleeping aborigines, and, severe as had been the cold of the past night, we listened long and with intense interest to the distant sounds, not the usual noise of the cow moose at this season, but a sort of unearthly roaring.

“We called, and presently observed two moose leave the woods, and approach us on the barrens. When about five hundred yards distant from us we lost sight of them in the alder bushes which grew thickly on the banks of a small brook flowing into the lake. Past this spot they would not come : we did not advance, as we determined to kill no more moose on that excursion. Our object was simply to watch; I particularly wanted to ascertain from which animal the snorting and fierce bellowing came. We had perceived that they were male and female. They stopped in the alders for some fifteen minutes or so making a great row, breaking sticks and pawing the water in swamp holes with a loud splashing. At length we espied them beating a slow retreat on the route they had advanced upon, and I determined to take the canoe and follow them by water, leaving Stephen to prepare breakfast. The morning was perfectly calm, fog here and there rising from the lake and along the lines of the numerous brooks that emptied into it. I may here add, that though I have named it Lake Merganser, owing to the numbers of those birds frequenting it, it would have been fully entitled to have been called Rocky Lake, as I think that both below and above its surface rocks abound to a greater extent than in any other lake in Nova Scotia, and that is saying a good deal.

“Stealing over the lake’s surface, and seated in the bottom of our canoe, we could not well scan the woods by the margin, for the rocks on the shore were fully eight feet high. However, at length we sighted two large black objects ascending a hill. Peter called like a bull, and this at once arrested them. They turned, and one, for a moment lost to sight, appeared on the edge of the barren : another step and he must have descended. It was a mighty bull moose. He peered at us, and we, motionless and with restrained breath, gazed upon him. After standing in that position for some minutes he turned and looked towards where we had slept. I did the same, &nd could plainly see the boy Stephen perched upon the rock beneath which we had lain. Then he walked five or six steps, turned, and gave us a full side view, twice picking some twigs from the bushes which we could hear him munching with his teeth, so close were we. During this wondrous sight the loud noise was made in the bush three times, when out walked a cow moose. She, like to her lord, looked hard at us, and I thought was “for off.” Not a bit ; she stopped head on for fully five minutes ; then turned, and faced the hill, emitting several times the angry grunt so dreaded by the Indian as a sign of ill-luck. The bull quietly took his departure, and we watched them enter the forest. This bull had only one horn. Peter declared that the other was a small stump—a malformation—but I shall ever be of the opinion that he had lost it in battle, for on our return to our rocky home, and when butchering the dead moose, we found that he had been in the wars, and was much bruised about the neck and ribs on the near side.

“Parting with this most interesting couple, we paddled on to the foot of the lake, and called a few times at the head of a bog. We were quickly answered, and up came a rattling moose. He was astonished at first seeing us, I feel certain, and was for bolting, but continued walking along the dry edge of the bog. Peter imitated a bull’s note, at which he turned fiercely round with mane, rump-hair, and ears erect, and answered angrily. This was repeated fully six times to our great amusement. At length he walked away, making constant4 bookings/ and rubbing his antlers against burnt trees.

“All at once we espied another pair of moose coming from the opposite direction—a bull and a cow—and expected to see a meeting, perhaps a combat; but although there appeared every likelihood of such an occurrence, it was avoided by the pair retreating into the deep woods. The bulls ceasing to answer each other, we paddled back to camp, where little Stephen, though he had observed all the first part of the spectacle from the rock, had not neglected to provide for his ‘sacamow' and comrade red-skin a sumptuous repast of kidneys, steaks, and coffee.

“I am a firm believer, and always was, that it is the cow moose that makes the noise by some called a roar, and I was thus a witness to the fact. Here was a glorious morning’s sport without bloodshed! Alas! last season upwards of fifty moose were killed about Lake Merganser. It is a fact that now not a track can there be seen.”

MOOSE CAUGHT IN A TREE.

Moose not unfrequently perish in the woods through becoming entangled in some natural snare, or by breaking their legs amongst the rents and holes in the rocks which strew the country, and are often concealed by a carpet of moss. A few falls since I stumbled by chance upon the body of a moose which had recently met with an accidental death under the following curious circumstances. I was crossing a deep still-water brook in the forest, on a log fallen from bank to bank, when my attention was arrested by the disturbed appearance of the bank, and by the bark being rubbed off the bottom of a large spruce-tree which grew over the water on the opposite side. Completely submerged below the surface was the body of a large bull-moose, his antlers just peeping above the water A thick, root of the spruce grew out of the bank, and, curving round, reentered it, forming a strong loop. Into this the unfortunate moose, in attempting to cross the brook at this point, had accidentally slipped one of his hind legs up to the hock, and the looped root being narrow, he was unable to extricate it. A prisoner, for who can tell how long, the unhappy animal perished from starvation, and at last sank into the stagnant brook. The denuded state of the stem of the spruce, and the broken bushes around, showed with what violence his struggles had been attended.

The following is an Indian’s story of a somewhat similar occurrence:—Being visited one winter by two of his tribe and the larder nearly empty, the trio determined to have a hunt in search of moose-meat. It was February, and deep snow covered the country. On the evening of the first hunting day they came upon a fresh track, and their dogs, three in number, started the chase. Daylight failing, they renewed the hunt bright and early next morning, following until noon, when they finished the last morsel of their bread. Away again, and before nightfall the dogs had pressed the moose very hard. Taking up the trail next day, they pursued it with all the vigour left to them, and until two of the party gave in and determined to strike out for some settlement. The other Indian, however, resolving to stick to the trail to the last, went on, and, to his great delight, about an hour before sundown, he heard the dogs barking furiously. This was good; on he dashed, and presently came up with the moose and dogs. It was a barren cow : she had crossed a bog bisected by a deep still-water stream thinly crusted with ice, and, having broken through, was struggling mightily to reach the opposite side. He shot the moose in the head, and found, on attempting to haul out the carcase, that he could not succeed in moving it; so cutting off the mouffle and tongue, he lighted a fire and then and there feasted. In the morning he became aware that he was not far distant from a farm, as he heard the conk shell blow for breakfast, and proceeding to the spot he induced the settler to assist him by taking his two oxen and sled to the spot where the moose lay to haul out the meat. It was with the greatest difficulty that they extricated the beast from the hole. It appeared that a hard-wood tree had fallen across the still-water, and that the animal’s hind leg had got fixed fast in a crutch of the tree. Whence the Indian’s success. “Sartain good lucky this time,” said he. He sold his meat well in the adjoining settlement.

A BEAR SHOT WITH A HALFPENNY

“Not many years ago, when my head-quarters for fall hunting was on Lake Mooin (Anglice, the lake of the bear), I had enjoyed most excellent sport, moose calling, and four superb sets of antlers hung around the camp. The skins of these animals, together with two of bears, stretched, surrounded the smoke place. This latter was our favourite daily resort; for the camp was too hot a place by day, though a snug box enough at night, Jack Frost having come along with a late September moon. I had made up my mind to visit the lake which we had seen when out on the barrens ; it was studded with islands, and not far from where a huge bear had fallen to our guns a few days before when berry picking. He came quietly along, licking in the blue-berries, and when about twelve yards from us, who lay behind a rock, I bowled him over with an eleven to the pound bullet. My Indian, Peter, fired also, and terminated his death struggles by a ball through the brain. The other bear had likewise been stretched in the same locality. We had been calling on the barrens and had heard moose several times, but wind arose and they got to leeward of us. Early next morning it became tolerably calm, though a few light puffs of wind came from the westward. A bull moose, accompanied by a cow, advanced, but winded us ; and we saw them spinning over the barrens for a long time, making for the deep woods to the west of our lake. We kept a bright look-out for ‘ Mr. Mooin,’ and a black object was presently discerned in the distance, though whether it was a bear or a moose we could not make out; it seemed to keep so much about the same spot, and seemed so large at times that we thought it must be the latter animal. Well, Peter and self started for the locality; the wind got up in our favour, and we advanced with rapidity, though, at the same time, with caution. Should it prove to be a moose we were not to fire; we had killed enough meat at that time, and besides bore in mind the great distance we should have to carry our load out of the woods. On nearing the place where we had seen the black object we crept to a large rock, cautiously looked from its shelter, and at once sighted a bear. We could just see its shoulders and head; it lay on its belly, and was picking berries from a bush apparently held down by its fore paws. I .fired my right barrel, but missed my mark. This brought the monster to a sitting position, when, taking a second aim, my bullet-pierced his head, and tumbled over a full-grown he bear. When we examined the trees about, we found that what had given him such a strange appearance to our eyes, when viewing him from a distance, was, that he had been on his hind legs, pawing the bark on the tree with his fore ; this was evident from the nature of the traces.

“Well, now to my tale. We got to camp about noon, and, as before stated, were bound to see the lake of the islands. There was a good deal of talking and smoking over the matter, but early one morning found us packed and in marching order. Leaving my boat capsized at the foot of Lake Mooin, we took to the woods, heading for Lake Merganser; found our little canoe, which had been concealed in the bushes by the shore; crossed, and struck off for the island lake. The difficulties were great; and we had to pull up for the night, choosing a good place for calling of course, for one, though only one, more moose must fall to our party, and that one must carry the finest antlers. At night we called, and were answered from the direction in which we had come on our trail. Being fatigued, and somewhat indifferent from the reflection that a dead shot would necessitate some nine hundred-weight of meat being backed out of the woods, we gradually all slumbered. I was up very early. The rocks on which I had lain had pierced almost to my bones, and I felt particularly sore about the right hip. I smoked, then called, and was at once answered by what was in my opinion the moose of the previous evening. On he came dashingly—no signs of fear about his note. I roused up Peter, and after some fifteen minutes attentive listening, finding he was not far distant, sent him off to call from some bushes about one hundred yards away. The moose presently came in view. He was crippled in his gait, almost dead lame in the off fore leg. He carried just what I wanted, an A 1 pair of antlers. I shot him, and am persuaded that he was not more than ten yards from me at the time; he was bound, with head erect, for the bushes wherein was secreted Peter. All the noise (my shot having been fired absolutely over the head of my other camp follower, the boy Stephen) had failed to arouse the slumbering son of the forest. There he lay until I hauled off his blanket, when he appeared quite annoyed at the close proximity of the antlered monarch. Upon examination we found that in the previous season this beast had got sadly mauled in a fight. Five ribs had been broken on one side, three on the other. His lameness was accounted for by the fact that the outside joint of his foot on the off side had been dislocated and had set out.

“The morning being very calm Peter proposed that we should leave the boy to get breakfast, and ourselves take up positions on two hills adjacent to look for bear. In case we saw any, the signal was to be the hat raised on the muzzle of the gun from the hill top. I had not been long on my look-out when I espied black objects moving, but not being certain of their genus, I started to ascertain, and soon came upon a fine cow moose with an attendant bull, a two-year-old. I strolled back to my look-out, and being tired, I suppose I “slept upon sentry.” I was awakened by a shot, closely followed by another, again two more in quick succession. Now I knew that our party was alone in those deep woods, and that Peter had carried my smooth bore, for which I had handed him only four bullets, with what little powder remained, in a red half-pound canister of Curtis and Harvey’s. I was alarmed, for I knew that my henchman would only fire at vermin, and I started helter-skelter in the direction of the firing. Fear accelerated my steps, for on my onward course I heard two more shots, and what that meant, except in sign of distress, I could not divine. On reaching the side of the hill, on the summit of which I well knew that Peter had perched himself, I saw an object which I readily recognised as a back view of the Indian actively engaged. I rushed on and found this wonderfully powerful and agile youth hauling along the carcase of a young bear. He was full of smiles, and chided me for not coming to the battle. He had seen a bear feeding on berries, and had given me the signal, but it must have been at the time I was off to the pair of moose, or—shall I write it ? yes, truth is best told—perhaps it was when I slumbered. He crawled down, and when about twenty yards distant had fired at the animal. A second shot seemed at first to have proved inefficacious, when the flying bear suddenly dropped dead in her tracks. It proved afterwards that the first shot had told, hitting high up in the lungs. Hearing a noise to his right he looked round, and espied two young bears in precipitate retreat. He made chase, when both treed simultaneously on the nearest ‘ ram-pikes ’—huge naked stems of burnt pines, of which there was a bunch of five or six standing together. Peter halted and loaded. He missed the nearest youngster with shot number one, but the second brought it down dead from its. perch. About fifteen yards from the spot there sat the other cub on a projecting branch, which, on the Indian’s approach, it left, and clasped the trunk for a downward retreat. (Those who have not witnessed it can form but a faint idea of the rapidity with which a bear when scared can ascend or descend a tree.) Peter had no more bullets, so what was to be done ? "Well, his first attempt to kill young ‘mooin’ was with the stopper, or rather charger of the powder horn,, which he rammed down into the right-hand barrel. This was a failure and a miss. 4 Mooin ’ still clasped the tree in desperation. Reflection made Peter search his pockets, when therein he found a halfpenny—a fitting remaining coin to be in an Indian’s keeping. He sat down ; and underneath the tree where the poor victim clung, aided by the butt-end of the gun, which bears the well-indented marks to this day, he doubled up that copper, drove it down over the powder in the left-hand barrel, fired, and brought down the bear from its perch. He had broken its near thigh—a frightful fracture; but, falling with three legs to work on, it took to the bush at a great pace. Scarcely a match at any time in point of speed for this agile: young Indian, it was soon overtaken, and he had succeeded in beating it almost to fragments with a stick which he had snatched up in the wild chase when I arrived to see him hauling it out from the thicket in which he had captured it.

“Hearing his story, I went to the tree, and in it could distinctly see the end of the charger, and feel confident that it may be still seen there if the former is standing. That day we feasted gloriously at dinner-time on the roasted ribs of young bears, one of which had been shot with a halfpenny.”

THE CAPLIN.
{Mallotus villosus.)

This curious little Salmonoid, the smallest known member of its family, and, perhaps, the most ancient in type, plays a very important part in connection with the great cod fisheries on the banks and along the shores of Newfoundland, proving the most tempting bait, on which to take the latter fish when it approaches the shores to spawn. This it does yearly in numbers baffling description, and the manner in which the operation is performed is one of the most singular and interesting facts in its character. It may be observed that the male and female differ so much in appearance at this season that it would be difficult to believe they were of the same species. The females are very like the common smelt, possessing, perhaps, more metallic lustre, but the males are adorned by lines or ridges of flaccid fringe, resembling velvet, which run just above the lateral line from the upper angle of the operculum to base of tail. It is stated by so many competent and credible authorities, that I think it deserves to be placed on record as an authenticated fact, that the following is the mode of proceeding. The time for the female depositing her spawn having arrived, she is assisted by two male fish, one on each side, and when the surf offers, they all force themselves with great swiftness on the beach, taking particular care that the female is kept in the middle, and by thus compressing her the object of their visit is accomplished. Many repetitions are undoubtedly required. The three caplin then separate, and struggle back into the ocean with a receding wave. It is difficult to say in what precise manner the processes or ridges of the male are used ; probably some amount of downward pressure is exerted through their aid in running on the sand, and the female is assisted thereby in exuding the ripe and readily expressed spawn.

The caplin arrives at its spawning beaches on the south-east coasts of Newfoundland, about the 20th June, and remains close inshore for about five weeks ; beyond this period the fish is rarely seen or taken under any circumstances. The warm days with light fogs occurring at this season are looked upon by the expectant fishermen as favourable to their striking in; they call such days “caplin weather.” Now all is rivalry as to who shall get the first haul for bait; a bucket full would command any price—like new potatoes at Covent Garden .or the first salmon at Boston. In a few days’ time they will be rolled over the roads by strings of carts, selling at 3s. a load, and exported by thousands of barrels to the eager French fishermen on the Banks; for now is the great banquet of the cod, and herring and clam, mackerel and sardine, are each refused for the new and delicate morsel. It was the height of the caplin season when I arrived in St. John’s one summer. Caplin were being wheeled through the streets, caught in tubs, buckets, and ladled up in scoops by everybody from the wharves of the town ; the air was strongly impregnated with the smell of caplin; they were scattered about in the streets, and you trod on or drove over them everywhere. The fish-fiakes, roofs of houses, and little improvised stages attached to nearly every dwelling were strewn with caplin drying in the sun. In the country, on the roads to the out-harbours, a continual stream of carts was passing loaded with glittering cargoes of fish, the whole mass moving together like a jelly, and so likely to spill over the sides that division boards are placed across the cart to separate the fish into two masses, and thus keep them steadier. In the fields men were engaged in spreading them broadcast, or sowing them in drills with potatoes; whilst others were storing them for manure by burying enormous masses of fish in mounds of earth. But it is on the beach only that a just conception can be formed of the great multitudes in which this fish approaches the shore, when sometimes the surface of the water appears as a living mass as far as the eye can reach ; with their heads towards the land, they lie like a black line close in, each succeeding wave dashing them on the beach, where, as the tide ebbs, they remain and die. The seine, the cast-net, and the dip-net are being plied by the busy fishermen, whose families are collecting the dead fish and depositing them in heaps or in pits for manure. Sometimes the mass is so dense that a boat is impeded in sailing through them, and in dipping them up more fish than water are taken in a bucket. Numbers of the lively little tern wheel screaming through the air over the school of fish, every now and then making a dash on their prey, whilst out in the deep water lies the great army of codfish, ready to feast on them as they return from the beach. In fact, as regards their finny foes, every fish large enough to swallow them preys on the caplin. Captain Murray, R.E., informed me that he had taken a salmon with five, and a sea trout with two caplin in the stomach, the latter being only 2 lbs. weight. A friend of his once thought he had hooked a sea trout, but after a little play succeeded in landing a dead caplin, to which the hook had affixed itself in the trout’s mouth, the latter being apparently too full to complete the act of swallowing.

A scene of this description is exceedingly interesting, as I saw it one deliciously warm sunny afternoon in July on the pebbly beach at Topsail, near the head of Conception Bay. As we approached the village from the road leading to St. John’s the prospect from the top of the last hill was charming. The neat little village at our feet, with its fish stages and patches of garden, bounded by the rough, barren, sandstone cliffs of Portugal Cove; a pebbly beach in front, dotted with groups of fishermen throwing their cast-nets over the black patches which indicate the approaching beds of caplin; the activity prevailing on board the boats and schooners moored a few yards off; the men dipping up the fish, and throwing them over their shoulders into their boats, formed a pleasing and animated foreground to a picture where the distance was formed of the lofty blue mountains across the bay, whilst in middle distance reposed the well cultivated islands of Great and Little Belleisle. In the centre of the bay was grounded a large iceberg, which lay melting away in torrents under the influence of the hot July sun.

Nothing could exceed the beauty of the iridescent colours of the fish as I handled them fresh caught. The back of the male between the ridges flashed from deep blue to emerald green as it caught the light. The absence of timidity on the part of the fish was wonderful: it seemed as if no amount of splashing over them by the heavily weighted cast-nets could frighten the remainder from the shore. They appeared impelled to push in by strong instinct, and even when wounded and dying from being struck by the lead weights of the net, their heads would still point to the beach. We could readily capture them with our hands as they swam close in, scarcely wetting our feet. The sand and grayel of the beach was mixed with a large proportion of spawn; I found the latter in the stomachs of several of the males which I opened.

As has been stated, the primary and most important use of the caplin in Newfoundland, Labrador, and the Gulf is as bait for the cod. During the spring the fish has been taken, both on the banks and along shore, by Tierring, but in inconsiderable numbers; now, however, they look for their great annual glut? and caplin alone will take them. Every shore boat must have its fresh caplin,, as Well as every Frenchman on the banks. It is the bait of the hook-and-line fisherman as well as for the destructive bultow. Were the supply of caplin withheld from the French, their great fishery fleet could do nothing, as, having exhausted the supply from their own islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, by taking and wasting the fish with too great prodigality, they are now entirely dependent on the supply from the harbours of the main island.

It is evident that any material and permanent decrease of this bait must tell directly on the fisheries. The caplin may, as has been proved, be so thinned by wholesale destruction whilst spawning on the beach, whilst many are driven off and compelled to drop their spawn in deep water, where it will not vivify, as finally to desert a locality for ever. On many parts of the Newfoundland coast this has been the case, and Perley states that the cod fishery of the Bay of Chaleur has greatly fallen off since the caplin have almost ceased to visit parts of it, and many houses in consequence found it necessary to break up their establishments. The great complaints of the scarcity of bait along the western shore of Newfoundland are owing to the complete failure of a celebrated baiting place at Lamaline, where formerly the strand looked like a bed of spawn, but now is completely ruined, the caplin no sooner approaching the shore than they were hauled before they had time to spawn. In fact little argument is required to prove that the cod fishery must stand or fall with the supply of caplin. The wasteful practice of manuring the land with caplin is another incentive to taking the fish wantonly. Not only are the dead fish, which are strewn in myriads on the beaches, collected for manure, but live fish are hauled for the same purpose, and hundreds of cartloads have I seen upset to form a heap of putrefaction, afterwards to be spread on the soil, every fish composing which was good and wholesome food for man, eaten fresh on the spot, or simply dried for exportation or winter use. But Newfoundland is shamefully prodigal of the great natural resources afforded to her. It is true that the fish is dried and exported to the markets of Europe—and a more delicious dried fish than the caplin does not exist; but why this shameful conversion of food into manure from sheer laziness? Neither does the caplin manure prove so very beneficial after all. Though very efficacious for one year for grass and all root crops except potatoes, it then requires renewal; the land cannot do without the stimulus, or it soon falls off. About five loads of earth are mixed with one of caplin, which is bought at three to four shillings. The fish, well covered, are allowed to decompose till October; then mixed and ploughed in the land either that fall or the ensuing spring. On the other hand, the caplin requires little or no attention in drying to become an article of food. A few hours in pickle, and a few more exposed to the sun, on a stage or roof, or even on the ground, and they may be packed loosely in a barrel, without salt, and headed up.

Though its range is too great, and its spawning grounds far too extended to render extinction of the species possible, yet, in the baiting places whence it is obtained for the use of the neighbouring cod fisheries, it has been in many instances rendered exceedingly scarce; and its final total departure from these resorts must ensue unless it is protected from being hauled before or in the act of spawning, and for such a wasteful purpose as that of manuring the land. The total absence of bait will at once ruin the fisheries, the immediate effect of which must be the ruin, starvation, and abandonment of their present residence on the part of thousands; and to such a state of affairs the Newfoundland fisheries, including its very vitality as a colony, seem rapidly drifting.

THE GASPEREAU.
{Alosa tyrannus.)

Another example of an important and interesting fish, affecting the shores of Acadie as far north as the Miramichi river in New Brunswick, is afforded by the Gaspereau, a true alosa allied to the shad, which ascends all the streams and brooks of these provinces to spawn in the parent lakes in the beginning of May, those with clean sandy beaches being its most favoured resorts. Dr. Gilpin thus graphically describes its progress :—“ The stream before us is crowded with a multitudinous marine army, coming up from the sea with the last of the flood, and running to reach the lakes to spawn. A little further up it becomes deep and smooth, and is crossed by the high road. Lying our length on the log bridge, we watch a continuous stream passing slowly up, two or three inches apart. Further up, and the river breaks over a smooth plane of slate stones too shallow for the depth of the fish. Arrived at this plane the gaspereau throws himself as far up as he can, and then commences a series of spasmodic flaps with his tail.

“Slowly and painfully he passes over and drops exhausted into the tranquil pool above. Utterly exhausted, they lie heads and tails in a confused mass. Presently recruiting, their heads all pointing up stream, they again commence their march. In countless hordes they sweep through lonely still waters, the home of the trout, cool and pellucid enough to tempt a weary way wanderer, but on and on his irresistible instinct drives him. A natural dam, some two or three feet elevation, and over which the waters fall with a perpendicular rush, now arrests his progress. He throws himself (no doubt with a vigorous sweep of tail) directly at it. That about two and a half to three feet is his utmost range, the many failures he makes before he drops into the pool above attest.

“He has now gained his lake, often a very small one in the heart of the forest, and perhaps at six hundred feet elevation from high water mark. And now commences his brief courtship, for, unlike the lordly salmon who dallies until November, our fish has but little time for delay. Camping on the lake-side of a moonlight night, you hear a swash in the water. “What fish in that?” you ask your Indian; “Gaspereau,” is his answer. The trout-fisher by day sees the surface of the lake ruffled by a hundred fins, then the trout break all around him. “See the gaspereau hunting the trout,” he says. But these are only his harmless gambols, coloured by the resistless instinct of reproduction. He has even been known to rise at a fly, and to take a bait on these waters. Although the salmon and trout are often seen spawning, I never met any one who has seen the Gaspereau in the act.

“In three or four weeks after leaving the salt water, his brief holiday over, our fish commences his return. 'Unnerved by the exhausting toil of reproduction, by the absence of food (on the lakes their stomachs are found empty), and perchance by the warming summer waters, he addresses himself to the perils and dangers of descent. Too poor for an object of capture, he slips down unnoticed, save by the idle or curious, where, a few weeks before, a whole population watched his ascent. It is said those marine wolves, the eels, follow the advancing and retreating armies in their rear, gobbling up many a weak fish, or unlucky little one on the march. A dry summer has emptied the lakes and turned the foaming torrents of the spring into dusty rills. He often gets caught in these lukewarm shallows and dies. Not unfrequently the hunter finds them in bushels in the fords; quite as often the bear secures a rich feast— dipping his hairy paws into the shallow pools. He may be seen approaching nervously and timidly a rapid, then striking up stream, and returning pass down tail first. Those which are seen in July or passing down in August, we must consider fish that have left the sea late in May, or that are caught by the dry season, and go down during the August freshets. Finally, October seems to be the last date for even the fry to be seen in fresh water.”

The advent of this fish in fresh water just at the time when flyfishing is at its best, often proves a source of vexation to the angler. It is so disappointing, just as one is commencing to ply the rod over some favourite’ pool for sea-trout, to see the sharp splash of the gaspereau, and the gleam of their silver sides as they dash round the pool in reckless gambols. The trout are quite cowed, and further fishing is useless; for, although this fresh-water herring will sometimes take the fly, it is a worthless fish when caught—thin, tasteless, and full of bones. Drenched in brine, and eaten as a relish with a mess of potatoes, it forms a common diet throughout the country ; and as there is scarcely a brook too small for the gaspereau to ascend, provided it comes from a lake, the luxury is brought fresh from the sea to the very door of many a settler in the remote backwoods. Great fun to the youngsters is dipping for gaspereau. A noisy crew of juveniles, half-clothed in homespun, stand on opposite sides, or striding across a forest brook; presently there is a shout of “here they come!” and in go the dip-nets with which they are armed, working with the stream. At every scoop two or three bright silvery fish are brought out, and deposited in a tub or barrel behind. It is a picturesque scene—the brook dashing between the dark-brown rocks, the surrounding bushes tinged with the pale green of their young leaves, and laden with blossoms—the excited boys with their high-braced trousers tucked up over the knee, and tattered straw hats, and the gleam of the fish as they are quickly hoisted out.

The damming up of many of these forest brooks to supply saw mills, and the disgraceful plan of stopping the now worthless fish on their return from spawning, by brushwood weirs stretched completely across the stream, is fast shortening the supply of these welcome visitors to the interior waters of the backwoods, thereby also depriving many of the harbours of the anxiously-sought visits of the mackerel, which come in vast shoals in search of the young fry of the gaspereau and the smelt. To enable this fish to ascend the rough waters and falls of the streams through which it must pass to get to the lake, it is provided with a horny ridge or keel, passing along the belly, and armed with recurved teeth like those of a saw, enabling it to hold its ground and rest on the rocky bottom in the roughest water.

VOICES OF REPTILIA IN SPRING

The subjoined passages from my note books advert to the multitudinous sounds emitted by reptile life in the warm nights of spring and early summer, which to a stranger appear one of the most striking features of New World natural history :—

May 10th.—Driving homewards this evening our ears were almost deafened by the chorus of frogs in the road-side swamps. For some days past we have been cheered by their welcome voices, but to-night they seemed to outdo themselves. The principal and noisiest performer is a little fellow, not more than three quarters of an inch in length, and so shy and acute that it is almost impossible to get a glimpse of him, even by the most artful approach. This is the common peeper or cricket frog (Hylodes Pickeringii). Its quickly repeated, chirping note is very like that of the common house cricket, and equally joyous. If we stand by to listen, they somehow or other slacken gradually, as if a warning of danger was being passed through the community: we remove a few paces, and a solitary peep of a bold frog announces that the danger is past, and away they all start again into the maddest chorus, each trying to outvie the others. At the edge of the swamp sits the common toad (B. americanus), and, with a distended throat, pours out that rapid and peculiar trilling note which may always be heard as an accompaniment to the frog chorus throughout the warm nights of spring. He is not quite such an ugly reptile as the English toad, though very similar in general appearance and form; the colour is lighter and brighter, sometimes approaching an orange-yellow, and the spots and markings tire more conspicuous. At intervals we detect the solemn croak of the large green-headed frog (Rana fontinalis), which seems to put periods to the incessant rattle of the hylodes and toads. They seem half afraid of this great handsome bully, and his authoritative “clown, down!” comes from the undoubted monarch of the swamp. This is a very pretty reptile—a dark brown skin barred with black, the head and upper portion of the back bright grass green, and the throat a glaring yellow. Their colours are most developed at mid-'>mer, when they sit croaking in shallow ponds throughout the s well as night, and pursue one another with prodigious leaps, seen them clear eight feet at a jump. Returning from fishing, tempted these frogs to spring on a red fly dangled over their d a disagreeable business the releasing of the slimy monsters scene for a Christmas pantomime would be a representation our swamps, with an opening chorus of the little “ peepers,” Laughable representation of bull-frogs by agile humans metamorphosed into reptiles, whilst the staid old toad slowly waddles up the bank, and pours forth his monotonous trill. The hylodes might be shown clinging to the stems of rushes above the surface of the pool (a position in which I have discovered them by the aid of a bull’s-eye lantern at night), inflating their immense throat bags to produce their shrill pipe, whilst an admirable scenic effect might be rendered by imitation of the swamp vegetation—the tussacs of pink sphagnum perforated by the crimson and green vases of the pitcher plant and covered by the creeping tendrils and great shining apples of the cranberry, clumps of bulrush, purple iris, and other waterside plants, arrow heads, and the two water lilies, white and yellow.

THE END