XXIV PROCEEDINGS. 



believe in Buckingham Palace, having been presented to Her Late 

 Majesty Queen Victoria; whilst a whole family stuffed by him 

 appeared in the Nova Scotia Court at the Paris exhibition of 1867. 

 His charge was moderate; I think I used to pay him twenty or 

 twenty-five dollars for setting up my own heads. The true-to- 

 nature modelling of the curious nose of the moose was his forte. 

 The eyes he put in, so he told me, were the upper part of the 

 inturned glass at the bottom of a black bottle. I never heard any- 

 one express aught but delight on receiving his trophy back from 

 the hands of Downs. 



To get the heads out of the woods to his establishment 

 what work we sometimes had ! To back tne huge thing 

 out of the woods, and such woods too, with swarms of blow- 

 flies trying to lay tneir eggs on it (I am speaking of the warm 

 days of the autumn hunting, in the winter the snow makes it much 

 easier) was often a difficult undertaking even for an Indian, who 

 carries it over his shoulders by the "carrying-strap," and he is liable 

 to have one of the great moose-ticks fasten on his neck " all same 

 as pieces of fire, he bite." I remember once coming out of Beaver- 

 bank woods, twenty miles 'from Halifax, with a splendid head we 

 had shot while " calling " the night before. My friend was my 

 guest, who had come out from England to see the woods, and being 

 most anxious to get the head into Downs' s pickling tub the same 

 day, I started off with about sixty pounds weight on my back, hop- 

 ing to do it alone, the Indian being obliged to go back to the hunt- 

 ing ground to get the meat with the settlers' help. I did not get 

 far. It was too much, and we had to obtain a cart or rather a 

 waggon. 



But to return from this digression to the occupant of Walton 

 Cottage gardens. He called it Walton Cottage after visiting 

 Charles Waterton, of Walton Hall, the author of Wanderings in 

 South America, of which more anon. There were many additions 

 to the zoo after my descriptive paper of 1864 was written, to wit 

 bears, polar and black; moose, seal, beaver, etc. White bears are 

 often procurable in Halifax, brought in by vessels trading with 

 Labrador. The specimen I saw at Downs's was always consistently 

 ferocious. Those of the black species, on the other hand, are pleas- 

 ant to have as pets. The Indians often bring them in. I bought 



