94 RAVEN. 



went to take a load of articles to be transferred to "winter quar- 

 ters." The cold weather is rapidly coming on, and we must be 

 prepared for it by moving into our winter home before very long. 

 It is a desolate looking region, I assure you, but we will try and 

 make things as comfortable as we can for all that. We have had 

 several ravens hovering about the fish stage to-day ; the people seem 

 to regard them as birds of ill omen, and say that they are in league 

 with the devil. You can rarely get any of the natives to shoot 

 at one of these birds no matter how near they come, and they 

 seem positively afraid of the results of so doing, fearing that it will 

 bring them misfortune for the remainder of the year. The bird 

 is really a very difficult one to shoot. I have often lain in wait 

 for it with my gun, firing at it when both at rest and on the wing, 

 at a very short distance off, and had it raise its huge black wings 

 and fly slowly off with a harsh and hollow croak as much as if 

 to defy both me and my gun. I have wasted more extra large 

 ducking charges at the raven than almost any other bird, and have 

 seen the least results. The bird itself is very common every^vhere, 

 summer and winter ; breeding on the high cliffs and hill tops, 

 and remaining about wherever there was any putrid flesh. It ap- 

 parently loves to walk or fly about on the tops of the hilly crests 

 on the mainland, and on the trees near the frozen bays in winter. 

 It frequents the seacoast, and is common about the inland ponds 

 and lakes. It replaces the crow, which rarely though occasion- 

 ally is found in these regions. The scientific name for the raven 

 is Corvjcs corax. 



Friday the 15th. I became quite well acquainted to-day with 

 the pigeon, as it is here called, otherwise known as the black guil- 

 lemot {Uria grylle). This little bird is one of the most abundant 

 of the waterfowl next to the eider ducks and Murres, that we 

 have upon the coast. Near St. Augustine we saw this bird for the 

 first time though it is found all along the Atlantic coast, as far south 

 as New Jersey, growing more and more rare as it approaches the 

 latter place where it was found in winter. I have seen them 

 everywhere in the waters in and about the islands, though never 



