412 Notes on Land and Sea Birds, 



Pierre Boucher, the Governor of Three Rivers, in the " Histoire 

 Naturelle du Canada." This small and interesting volume was 

 prepared by the old governor for the information and amusement 

 of his friends at the court of Louis XIV. In treating on the 

 subject, I cannot refrain from comparing notes with the old chron- 

 icler. At pages 34 and 35 he states that " amongst the birds 

 which are daily shot in Canada," there are ten kinds of divers, 

 " swans and cranes." As to swans, we can lay claim to the white 

 swan only, the black or Australian swan never having, that I am 

 aware of, been seen in this country. The white swan is tolerably 

 scarce now, however numerous the species may have been when 

 Governor Boucher wrote. A very magnificent specimen, shot at 

 Crane Island about 1825, was subsequently presented to the 

 Governor General, by D. McPherson, Esq., the seigneur of the 

 island. The beautiful stranger was, I believe, preserved by 

 Chasseur, and measured six feet from wing to wing. As to 

 cranes, they seem to us foreign birds as they were to the Romans : 

 " gruem advenam.%" Until a year or two back, two solitary 

 wanderers were frequently seen during July and August of every 

 year, feeding on the vast swamp which unites Crane to Goose 

 island. More than one sportsman tried to get within shot, but 

 these birds, which stood six feet high, were too watchful. Boucher 

 also mentions bitterns, snipes, woodcocks, jack-snipes, sand-pipers 

 or sea-larks, as he calls them, but says there are no field-larks ; in 

 this he is mistaken. Among other Canada birds, such as the 

 Uiarde, wild white goose, and fifteen species of birds of prey, 

 he makes mention of the wild turkey, not however, he adds, " to be 

 found either at Quebec, Three Rivers, or Montreal, but only in 

 the regions inhabited by the Iroquois or Mohawks, where they 

 are very numerous, and counted a delicious food." I believe the 

 habitat of this noble bird is restricted entirely to the far west. Port 

 Sarnia, &c. In noticing the wild turkey and Boucher's volume, I 

 am led to point out an error committed by that benefactor of the 

 human race, Brillat-Savarin, in his philosophical essay on gastro- 

 nomy," Physiologie du Gout ;" after setting forth the common opin- 

 ion respecting turkeys, viz. that turkeys were known to the Romans, 

 that turkeys were served at Charlemagne's nuptials ; he attempts 

 to discredit this opinion, and asserts that such is not the case ; 

 that turkeys were imported from America to France by the 

 Jesuits, about the end of the seventeenth century; that the 



* Horace, Epodon Lib. ^. 2. 



