1903] Ptarmigan and Fish 



set together with mortar. From one end to the other 

 you may trace the now abandoned trail by the soiled 

 and dislocated heather and moss, but all the human 

 skeletons, so far as I know, have been given a decent 

 interment. Some unfortunates, however, were buried 

 by avalanches on the south side near the foot of a 

 splendid unnamed waterfall on a great nameless river. 



In the White Pass lives the ptarmigan, an Arctic 

 grouse snow-white in winter except for a couple of 

 black feathers on the tail, but in summer plumage 

 streaked like the heather and dry grass in which it 

 makes its nest. Indeed, so perfect is the protection Perfect 

 that it is next to impossible to see one sitting in the P rotfctwn 

 heath. Discovered, it breaks away, pretending to 

 have a broken wing the instinctive device by 

 which various kinds of birds draw intruders from their 

 nests. 



The lakes of the Upper Yukon are full of whitefish, 

 "lake herring," and mackinaw trout. In the smaller 

 tributaries, also, abounds the grayling, the "flower of The 

 fishes," as the angling prelate, Bishop Ambrose of f/^7/o 

 Treves, called it a thousand years ago. It must there- fishes" 

 fore have been a trial to the worthy man when the 

 Church tore him from his see on the Moselle to rule 

 the diocese of Milan! 1 



At Caribou Crossing I first met with the Canadian 

 Mounted Police, as fine and upstanding a body of 

 young Scotsmen as ever came down from the High- 

 lands at the call of Macdonald or Argyle. And Cari- 

 bou was the center of operations of the devoted 

 Bishop Bompas. When we were there he was absent, Bishop 

 making visits of inspection over a district about as 



1 Here the good Father, "magnanimous, plaintive, and intense," was in due 

 time canonized, the cathedral of Santo Ambrogio being named in his honor. 



n 143 n 



