54 A GOODLY PILE. 



numerous, were distinguished by red eyes, greenish- 

 black mandibles of a nearly straight form, and a 

 pepper-and-salt coloured plumage. These were the 

 famous canvas -back ducks, the delicacy of whose 

 flavour is supposed to surpass that of all other water- 

 fowl. Others nearly resembling these, differing only 

 in having orange-yellow eyes and concave bluish bills, 

 they recognized as red heads. Besides these there 

 were wood-ducks; king-ducks, so called from their 

 gaudy plumage; harlequin ducks; whistlers, named 

 from the whistling sound made in their rapid flight; 

 shovellers, from the shape of their mandibles ; squaw- 

 ducks, or old-wives a term derived from the almost 

 ceaseless clamour which these birds keep up ; and 

 many other kinds. 



There are no less than eighteen different species of 

 ducks in the American waters ; but it is a question if 

 some of these are not identical with others differently 

 classified, merely varying in some trivial particular 

 which can hardly be held to constitute a difference of 

 species. 



The swans were carefully skinned by the hunters at 

 each camp by the way; and such were the numbers 

 in which they met these birds that they soon collected 

 a goodly pile of the handsome "pelts," which they 

 readily disposed of at the fort on the Forks of the 

 Athabasca. 



During their descent of the Clearwater, the youths 

 remarked the ragged air which generally characterizes 



