76 RASPBERRIES — STORM WEATHER. 



CHAPTER VI. 



Raspberries — Weather — Hudsonian Chickadee and other birds — Black-fly 

 — Topography of country — Old Fort bay, physical features and sur- 

 roundings — Superstitions concerning the raven. 



Sunday, Oct. 3. To-day some of the people in the house 

 brought in a few raspberries picked near the house, but whether 

 they were of the species known as the dwarf raspberry {^Rubus 

 triflorus^ , or the wild red raspberry (^R. strigosus) , I could not quite 

 tell as I did not analyze them ; the berries were quite dry and unfit 

 to eat. Neither of the species is rare along the coast anywhere, 

 and it might have been either or both of these. A quiet walk about 

 the island, which is about a mile and a half in diameter and four in 

 circumference, occupied us a good portion of the morning, while 

 in the afternoon the cool breezes found us enjoying ourselves out- 

 side the house in the shade on the lawn. 



Monday the 4th. After a stormy, windy night, the weather 

 continued rough and rainy all day. Tlie wind increasing raised 

 great billows upon the surface of the water, these increasing in 

 height and fury dashed with incredible force against the rocky 

 heights so numerous in the outer waters about the island. Huge 

 waves would hurl themselves against the rocky exposures, and 

 flooding them, pour down the opposite sides in broad sheets of 

 water ; or again they would break into showers of spray that would 

 spread themselves in crowns, wreaths, and haloes of magnificence 

 that would rival the most elegant artificial production, and put to 

 shame the most wonderful of ancient or modern fountain work. 

 Looking from the right from our door, a long line of low reefy 



