RIVERS. 219 



a shot fired, it requires almost as much caution to get 

 a shot at them as in inhabited districts. The best 

 way I found to shoot them was at low water, to sit down 

 on the beach behind a heap of seaweed, or a log, and 

 send some one to stir them up above and below. 

 I never had any trouble in keeping our larder supplied 

 with black duck. In the spring they seem to live 

 entirely on herring spawn and small shellfish, and feed 

 amicably on the beach along with the gulls and crows. 

 The latter birds are in clover here at this season. 

 I could not at first account for the number of urchin and 

 other shells which lay scattered about the plains, but I 

 soon found out that they had been carried there by the 

 crows. I saw a crow one day fly up in the air with an 

 urchin and drop it on the rocks, and repeat the operation 

 two or three times before he managed to get at the 

 interior. 



" The rivers in Anticosti are small, some of them almost 

 dry in midsummer ; but in most of them there are deep 

 pools just above the tide mark, which teem with sea trout. 

 These pools are capital little harbours, and charming places 

 to camp. I don't know that I ever saw a prettier place 

 in my life than the mouth of ' Fairy Eiver.' Flocks of 

 ducks and geese continually visit these pools for fresh 

 water, seals pop their heads up a few yards off in the 

 salt water, and Bruin once in a while comes sneaking 

 down to the shore, so that gunning, angling, and some in- 

 teresting little studies of natural history can all be com- 

 bined. The salmon on this coast are small, seldom weigh- 

 ing more than 10 Ibs. Where rivers are small, I have 

 always remarked that salmon are small. On a coast where 



