320 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



resource, to start on a tour of inspection, at the same 

 time hoping that my exertions would be rewarded with 

 the discovery of some quadruped or bird with which I 

 had been previously unacquainted. On entering the 

 scrub bush the mosquitoes became more numerous, 

 and I have little hesitation in saying that the blood- 

 suckers of Arkansas and Mississippi, which bear the 

 same name, are far from proficients when you compare 

 them with those of Labrador. After half an hour's 

 rough scrambling through the morass, I succeeded 

 in gaining more open ground. Rising towards the 

 upper ridges of high lands, the squawberry and blue- 

 berry grew in profusion, and the wild strawberry was 

 scattered in patches wherever sufficient sustenance 

 from the impoverished soil could be gained for its 

 support. In straying about I found two nests of 

 the night hawk ; the maternal parent of both was of 

 different plumage from those I have so frequently seen 

 on a summer evening on the banks of the Ohio Eiver ; 

 the eggs in each were four in number, of a dirty colour, 

 smudged with brown, and almost lying on the bare rock. 

 This bird is doubtless migratory, resorting here in 

 summer for the purpose of propagation, and spending 

 its winters in the more genial climate of the Southern 

 States, where it changes its plumage to one of less 

 brilliancy, and receives the local appellation of " bull 

 bat." 



In the rocks and sand I found some fossils of shells, 

 and on such elevated ground that it caused me at the 

 time surprise and wonder whether shell-fish were once 

 denizens of land instead of water, or whether these 

 mountains had once been submerged. Hares ap- 

 peared to be numerous, as their paths crossed and 



