SPlt ICE PAR TRID GE. WILD JfO WL. Ill 



think this species may fairly be called stupid, for, when 

 pelted with stones, the spruce partridge will rarely stir 

 ^ill it is either struck or shaken off the branch. I was 

 once out with an old Indian and his son, and finding 

 a covey of these birds in a place where stones were scarce, 

 we set the old man to cut boomerangs with his axe. This 

 he did almost as fast as the young fellow and I could 

 throw them, and the partridge remained stolidly on their 

 perches till two of their number had been brought down 

 by these primitive weapons. Their favourite haunts are 

 in swampy land, and along the banks of lakes and rivers. 

 At certain periods of the year their food consists entirely 

 of the buds and leaves of the spruce and fir. The flesh 

 then both tastes and smells strongly of these trees, and is 

 not good to eat ; but in the fall of the year the flavour is 

 better. 



There is very good wild-fowl shooting in New Brunswick. 

 It is a sort of half-way house where a moiety of the vast 

 myriads of wild fowl that hatch their young every summer 

 in the extreme north of the continent stop for a month or 

 two in spring and autumn on their way to and from more 

 southern latitudes. Few breed in the province, and none 

 winter in it, for obvious reasons, save a few of the hardier 

 of the Fuligulinx, who weather out the cold in open bays 

 and in the mouths of rivers which are not frozen over. 

 The wild-fowl shooter in most countries has to expose him- 

 self to a great deal of hardship, and New Brunswick is no 

 exception to this rule. Fine weather, dry feet, and good 

 shooting seldom go together. A bark canoe is an essential 

 for the New Brunswick duck shooter. A network of 

 rivers, lakes, streams, and creeks covers the whole province, 

 which can be traversed from one end to another in a canoe. 



