270 AGWANUS — NABISIPPI. 



latter place we could plainly see with the naked eye. Agwanus is 

 a very pretty place. A beach of quite pure sand is crowned by a 

 number of grass-plats upon which several houses have been built 

 while the whole is backed by the cliffs and crags of the neighboring 

 hills. We sailed by a number of small, low islands or rather rocks, 

 for there was scarcely any vegetation upon them, the breeding 

 place of innumerable terns (probably Sterna macrourd) , which 

 fairly swarmed everywhere we went. They took good pains, how- 

 ever, to keep just out of gun-shot, so that we did not procure any 

 of them. 



It was dusk when we passed through this region, and as we 

 slowly glided along the channel among the rocks, we watched the 

 beauties of the scene. Low patches of green topped the brown 

 rocks, and were set off by the display of the darker green of the 

 spruces farther inland and the shadows on the still darker green of 

 the cloud-shadowed rocks still farther away. Soon we came upon 

 a small cabin, snugly tucked away in a sheltered place among the 

 rocks near the shore. Close by here we anchored, while at our 

 right another small island swarmed with gulls and terns at which 

 we practised shooting until dusk. This place we learned was 

 Washtawooka bay. The harbor protected us perfectly on all sides, 

 and here we anchored for the night. 



Thursday, the 21st. Although the longest day of the year, we 

 to-day made our shortest run, being but six miles, only to return 

 to Nabisippi, another now deserted post of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, for the night. We spent part of the time lying to about 

 a mile off shore and shooting at the gulls, of which large numbers 

 surrounded us. It was the species known as Bonaparte's gull 

 ( CJu'oecocephabis Philadelphia) which abounds about the shoal 

 waters and fishing grounds everywhere along this part of the coast. 

 We saw here a most beautiful but rare sight, — it consisted of 

 large body of codfish "schooling, "as it is called, in reahty playing, 

 upon the surface of the water. The water would be covered for 

 acres with the heads or bodies of these fish as they dashed madly 

 about or scooted forward on the surface of the sea, often in per- 



