314 Life of Audubon. 



ferent sorts, producing such a sensation as I never fell 

 before. These mosses in the distance look like hard 

 rocks, but under the feet they feel like a velvet cushion. 

 We rambled about and searched in vain for a foot of square 

 earth; a poor, rugged, and miserable country ; the trees 

 are wiry and scraggy dwarfs ; and when the land is not 

 rocky it is boggy to a man's waist. All the islands about 

 the harbor were of the same character, and we saw but 

 few land birds, one pigeon, a few hawks, and smaller 

 birds. The wild geese, eider-ducks, loons, and many 

 other birds breed here. 



" June 19. The boats went off to neighboring islands 

 in search of birds and eggs, and I remained all day on 

 board drawing. Eggers from Halifax had robbed nearly 

 all the eggs. 



"The eider-ducks build their nests under the scraggy 

 boughs of the fir-trees, which here grow only a few inches 

 above the ground. The nests are scraped a few inches 

 deep in the rotten moss which makes the soil, and the 

 boughs have to be raised to find the nests. The eggs are 

 deposited in down, and covered with down, and keep 

 warm a long time in absence of the duck. They com- 

 monly lay six eggs. 



" June 20. The vessel rolls at her anchorage, and I 

 have drawn as well as I could.- Our party has gone up 

 the Natasquan in search of adventures and birds. It 

 seems strange to me that in this wonderfully wild ccuntry 

 all the wild birds should be so shy. 



" June 21. To-day I went four miles to the falls of 

 the little Natasquan River. The river is small, its water 

 dark and irony, and its shores impenetrable woods, ex- 

 cept here and there a small interval overgrown with a 

 wiry grass, unfit for cattle, and of no use if it were, for 

 there are no cattle here. We saw several nets in the 

 river for catching salmon ; they are stretched across the 



