FIELD NATURALISTS' CLUB 59 



paddle or pole over the further side, gradually edge your canoe 

 towards tin' game, concealed by the higher side of the canoe. 

 1 saw two little tips of ears over the stem of a large fallen tree. 

 I stood up to try to get a " sight " of even half an inch of the head, 

 but no, as I slowly straighten;' I myself up, slowly down went the 

 tips. I went quietly down again till I was nearly Hat in the 

 canoe in hopes that he would take a good pee]) over, but no, as 

 quietly did the two little tips rise and fall again. It was my 

 only chance and 1 fired knocking the dust off the edge of tin; 

 tree, but never did I see an inch of that lucifee again. 



The lucifee, though so shy and difficult to get near on 

 ordinary occasions, is, however, a very ferocious little beast if 

 3'ou, so to speak, put him in a corner : and I shall never forget 

 the fury with which one, which I caught in a trap during a 

 winter hunting expedition, rushed at and attacked my Indian 

 and myself, when we tried to get near enough to brain him with 

 an axe. He was caught by a leg in a powerful steel trap attached 

 by a chain to a tree, and he rushed trap and ail at us to the full 

 extent of the chain, very much as a cat protecting a litter of 

 kittens will do at a small cur. We brained him at last and got 

 a beautiful skin. 



The lucifee, I have used the usual local name, is sometimes 

 called the painter or panther. The proper name I believe is 

 lynx (Felis canadensis.) Colour brown or grey, spotted with a 

 darker shade. Stout, very powerful limbs, short stumpy tail, 

 anil upright ears with a little tuft at the points. 



Bears are extremely shy — have a very keen sense of smell, 

 and of hearing, and have a marvellous aptitude for disappearing 

 and never again showing, and are most difficult to get a shot at. 



On one occasion I crossed a " portage * " between the head 

 waters of the Grand River (running into the St. .John) and the 

 Restigouche alone about dusk. There were lots of tracks of 

 bears on the soft ground and mud, and T was eagerly looking out 

 for a shot. I retraced my own track, after a short interval of 

 some 10 or 15 minutes. There, on the top of my own foot tracks, 

 was the fresh trail of a bear, which had apparently followed me 

 along for a considerable distance, but though 1 had crept 

 stealthily along, watching for a chance, I never got a glimpse of 

 him. 



On another occasion on the Xepisiquit River, waking up in 



* I ought perhaps to describe what a "Portage" means. It is the 

 path or track that passes from the head waters <>t one river to another, 

 from one Lake to another, or which le ids past a high fall or rapid, up or 

 down which you cannot pass in a canoe, and over which "portage" you 

 must carry your canoe and baggage. It is a word constantly in use in the 

 Dackwoods. 



