WEALTH ON WINGS 



and who have, therefore, had better opportunity for 

 being posted than anyone could have who simply 

 passes through on a hurried trip. 



However great or small the native factor of 

 destruction may be, it is not more apt to lessen than 

 to increase in extent; and taking the net results of 

 mixed white and native occupancy of that upper 

 country, in these days of gradually improving trans- 

 portation and gradually increasing knowledge about 

 the upper shooting grounds, we are not to expect 

 that the number of wildfowl killed in the Far North 

 will lessen, but that it will increase. That is still a 

 great wilderness, but the white man is edging into 

 it all the time. 



As to the country itself, as we saw it, we passed 

 through hundreds and hundreds of miles of country 

 far more suitable for moose and lynx than for 

 geese and ducks. Once in a while we would see a 

 low and marshy shore, but this did not often hap- 

 pen. Of course there are hundreds and thousands 

 of miles on both sides of the river of which the 

 traveler knows nothing and of which no one knows 

 very much; but the consensus of opinion, made up 

 from reports of the Geologic Survey and from those 

 of hunters and trappers, by no means indicates that 

 Upper Canada is a vast marsh, suitable for a breed- 

 ing ground of wildfowl. 



193 



