•REEKS — NOTES ON THE BIRDS OF NEWFOUNDLAND. 39 



aware, forms one of the valuable British colonial possessions on 

 the coast of North America. Its geographical position lies 

 between lat. 46° 37' and 51° 40' north, and long. 52^ 41' and 

 59*^ 31' west : it is bounded on the north by the -Straits of 

 Labrador, on the west by the Gulf of St, Lawrence, and on the 

 south and east by the Atlantic Ocean, and has a seaboard of 

 nearly two thousand miles. There is a chain of mountains, or 

 rather in many places high table-land, running almost throughout 

 the island in a N.E. and S.W. direction. The low land is made 

 up of vast savannas, intersected by extensive woods, lakes and 

 rivers — one inland lake alone being sixty-five miles long, and 

 containing an island as large as the Isle of Wight, and which 

 seems to have been the last stronghold of the Red Indians. 

 Since the extermination of this persecuted race (which probably 

 took place not more than thirty years ago) the whole of the 

 interior of the country has been uninhabited. Several " histories" 

 of Newfoundland have appeared from time to time, and amono; 

 the best of these I may mention one by Chief Justice Reeves, 

 published in 1793, another by Anspach in 1820, and the last by 

 the Rev. C. Pedley in 1863 ; but, strange as it may appear, none 

 of these authors give any reliable information on the natural 

 history of this extensive island : which, besides being rich in its 

 fauna and flora, will, I have no doubt, prove equally so in 

 minerals. In some places I have also seen as good a surface-show 

 of petroleum oil as in the well-known oil-regions of Pennsylvania. 

 A two years' residence, under the most favourable circumstances, 

 in a country nearly as large as England, and where the forests are 

 still primitive and in many places almost interminable, is scarcely 

 sufficient time to warrant anything like a correct list of the 

 animals or plants; but when impeded by such a severe accident 

 as I sustained from frost, which kept me a prisoner to the house 

 for several months, no other apology is necessary for the 

 incompleteness of these " Notes," which none can possibly regret 

 more than the writer. There are few inhabited countries, perhaps, 

 on the face of the globe, where the naturaHst gets less assistance 

 in the oological department than in Newfoundland. The whole 

 and sole occupation of the settlers on the north-west coast is fishing 

 and furring, — the former in summer and the latter in winter, — 

 and upon their success entirely depend the stock of provisions they 

 will be enabled to obtain, by barter with the traders, for the long 

 period of nine months, when no vessels visit the unsafe 



