NOTES ON NEWFOUNDLAND. 279 



seen or heard of one. "^ The island of Anticosti is said to 

 be similarly deficient in representatives of this class. As 

 has been written of Ireland in an ancient poem, composed 

 by a St. Donatus, and dating as far back as the ninth 

 century : — 



" Nulla venena nocent, nee serpens serpit in herba, 

 Nee conquesta canit garrula rana laeu." 



From foregoing remarks, it will be readily seen that 

 the interior of Newfoundland is a vast field of discovery, 

 especially interesting to the enterprising sportsman. In 

 August and September, when the berries are ripe, 

 animal life is wonderfully abundant (for America) on the 

 open barrens. The deer begin their descent from the 

 hills ; willow grouse, now well grown, associate in large 

 coveys ; wild geese and curlew are found feeding on the 

 upland barrens, and snipe are plentiful in the marshes. 

 Bears are reported very numerous in the interior, where 

 their well-beaten paths, traversed for ages, afford good 

 walking to the traveller. When discovered at a distance, 

 revelling amongst thickets of berry-bearing bushes, they 

 may be easily approached under cover of ridges or rock 

 boulders. Furs of many sorts would repay the trapper ; 



■* Whitbume appears to have been aware of this cireumstanee, for he writes : 

 " Neither are there any Snakes, Toads, Serpents, or any other venomous 

 Wormes that ever were knowne to hurt any man in that country, but only a 

 very little nimble fly (the least of all other flies) which is called a Miskieto, 

 those flies seem to have a great power and authority upon all loytering and 

 idle people that come to the Newfoundland : for they have this property 

 that when they finde any such lying lazily, or sleeping in the woods, they 

 will presently bee more nimble to seize on them than any Sargent will be 

 to arrest a man for debt. Neither will they leave stinging or sucking out 

 the blood of such sluggards, until like a Beadel they bring him to his 

 master, where he should labour, in which time of loytering, those flies will 

 so brand such idle persons in their faces, that they may be knowne from 

 others as the Turks do their slaves." 



