292 Life of Audubon, 



the period when these poor birds are unfit for flight, troops 

 of Indians make their appearance in light bark canoes, 

 paddled by their squaws and papooses. They form their 

 flotilla into an extended curve, and drive the birds before 

 them ; not in silence, but with simultaneous horrific yells, 

 at the same time beating the surface of the water with 

 their long poles and paddles. Terrified by the noise, the 

 birds swim a long way before them, endeavoring to escape 

 with all their might. The tide is high, every cove is fill- 

 ed, and into the one where we now are thousands of ducks 

 are seen entering. The Indians have ceased to shout, 

 and the canoes advance side by side. Time passes on, 

 the tide swiftly recedes as it rose, and there are the birds 

 left on the beach. See with what pleasure each wild in- 

 habitant of the forest seizes his stick, the squaws and 

 younglings following with similar weapons! Look at 

 them rushing on their prey, falling on the disabled birds, 

 and smashing them with their cudgels, until all are de- 

 stroyed ! In this manner upwards of five hundred wild 

 fowls have often been procured in a few hours. Three 

 pleasant days were spent about Point Lepreaux, when 

 the Fancy spread her wings to the breeze. In one har- 

 bor we fished for shells, with a capital dredge, and in 

 another searched along the shore for eggs. The Passama- 

 quoddy chief is seen gliding swiftly over the deep in his 

 fragile bark. He has observed a porpoise breathing. 

 Watch him, for now he is close upon the unsuspecting 

 dolphin. He rises erect j aims his musket : smoke rises 

 curling from the pan, and rushes from the iron tube, when 

 soon after the report reaches the ear: meantime, the 

 porpoise has suddenly turned back downwards; it is 

 dead. The body weighs a hundred pounds or more, but 

 this, to the tough-fibred son of the woods, is nothing ; he 

 reaches it with his muscular arms, and, at a single jerk — 

 while with his legs he dexterously steadies the canoe — 



