236 A BIRCH-BARK CANOE TRIP 



meadow land close to the river, while the numerous stalings of 

 bears betrayed their recent presence. We were evidently in a good 

 game country. Toward night we heard more than once a stealthy 

 crackling among some dry timber, but were at a less as to what 

 class of game to attribute the noise. We found about a mile to 

 the eastward of the river a bog and meadow intersected with moose 

 paths. However, we did not stumble across anything. Joe called 

 in the evening, making rather a poor effort, however, in comparison 

 with the scientific skill of the Micmacs of Nova Scotia, and to no 

 effect. 



Partridges were very plentiful about this camp, and by stray- 

 ing some fifty yards away we were sure of several shots. I now 

 began to use my rifle upon them, and succeeded after a little practice 

 in decapitating the bird at almost every shot. Occasionally the 

 ball would hit the body, when it would be mangled to such a degree 

 as to be useless. A few shield ducks passed up and down the 

 river in search of feeding grounds, and afforded some wing practice. 

 They proved very tough and inferior eating and we were obliged to 

 stew them to make them at all palatable. The hills at a distance of 

 three miles were seen to be wrapped in a dense smoke that must 

 have been caused by large forest fires to the windward. This was 

 disappointing, for Joe had hoped to descry bears feeding on the rich 

 blueberry feast which their steep sides offered. 



Some sugar having been spilled here on the floor of our camp, 

 a surprising number of semi-colon butterflies (Grapta s.) visited 

 us and indulged in graceful air dances. The Vanessa milberti 

 butterfly, somewhat dwarfed in size, was also on the wing in num- 

 bers, and a few of those bird-like flyers, Danais archippus, were also 

 observed ; but on the whole, insect life seemed very scarce. I 

 much missed the cheerful notes of the cicadas which in Nova Scotia 

 fairly make the woods resound, and have a mirthful, exhilarating 

 effect, when all else in nature is steeped in the languor of a summer 

 afternoon. 



I asked Joe if he had ever seen them. On describing the insect 

 he said, ' Oh, yes ' ; his father once offered him a pair of snow-shoes if 

 he caught one that he heard whistling in a high tree. For a long 

 time he looked this way, that way, for the cicada is literally a 

 ventriloquist ; at last he climbed the tree at haphazard, saw him 

 walking down the trunk, made a prisoner of him, and got the 

 coveted snow-shoes. Joe continued that some have checkers 

 marked on their wings, some dominoes and some card spots, and 

 that if you keep such wings in your pocket you will excel at these 

 games. 



Seeing many signs of bears about, we constructed a dead-fall 



