A LABRADOR SPRING 



Shelldrake and Thunder Rivers were the next 

 ports of call, and Magpie, a picturesque little 

 town dominated by a long building with the 

 letters C. R. C. painted on its roof. These 

 letters stand for Collins, Robin Company, a 

 firm that deals in fish, as was evident from the 

 very extensive fish-flakes that were spread 

 out on the hillside, and that looked from a dis- 

 tance like a cultivated field. The town itself 

 seemed to consist of only a dozen houses and a 

 church built close to the rocky hill, which here 

 comes to the sea. On our return at the end of 

 June a fleet of twenty-six black, two-masted 

 boats floated at their moorings, prepared to 

 cover the fish-flakes with the harvest of the sea. 

 Beyond the town, the Magpie River J with its 

 white cascade enters the sea. While we were 

 watching from the steamer the wreath of mist 

 that hovered about the falls, a trapper and 

 trader with the Indians related the adventures 



1 1 am indebted to Prof. W. F. Ganong for a hint which 

 probably explains the existence of the unexpected name of 

 the Magpie River. The old as well as the present name 

 here of the gannet is margot, and this has in former days 

 been wrongly translated magpie. Gannets formerly 

 abounded in this region and still occur, but magpies are 

 not found here. 



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