A LABRADOR SPRING 



sweetheart would prefer this song to the harsh 

 ;*!. 



A first cousin of the bake-apple, the arctic 

 raspberry, must have blossomed about this 

 same time, but I did not find it until June i yth, 

 when I came across great masses of the pinkish- 

 purple bloom in a marsh near the Mingan River. 

 Like the bake-apple, this modest raspberry 

 displays but two or three leaves besides its 

 blossoms, and is rarely more than two or three 

 inches high. 



To return to the subject of snow and ice, I 

 would mention a snowbank in a lovely wooded 

 ravine near Esquimaux Point that I photo- 

 graphed with its leafless surroundings on June 

 4th. The region was almost birdless also, 

 for although I listened for an hour at this place 

 the only bird voice I heard was the hymn of the 

 hermit thrush but that one song was well 

 worth a full chorus of bird songs. After this, 

 hermit thrushes became common, but on this 

 day the song was heard for the first time in this 

 Labrador spring. On my walk to and from 

 the snowbank I found pipits, fox and white- 

 throated sparrows, juncos and snow buntings, 

 a few black-poll warblers, ruby-crowned king- 



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