ON DERRY ISLAND 177 



The 4th of April, 18 , by invitation, found 

 me on Derry Island, at Fox Harbour, 4| miles 

 from Wallace town, for a ten-days' outing. 

 When we reached the latter place, the sea ice 

 was so very firm that we went in a sleigh out 

 to and into the above island a thing quite 

 unprecedented at that time of year. It was 

 dusk when we reached the house, and I must 

 confess, when our surroundings were viewed 

 the next morning, the prospects for very extra 

 good shooting were remote, for, apart from a 

 few hundred acres of water, where Wallace 

 and Fox Harbours met, the whole horizon in 

 the direction of the sea was an extended body 

 of ice. Nothing daunted, however, we were 

 determined to know, and to know that day, 

 if there had been any immigrants to that 

 open spot. 



You have no doubt noticed, reader, if a 

 close observer in sport, that migratory birds 

 come and go about the same time every year, 

 irrespective of weather. My companion S., 

 with his boatman, rigged themselves up in 

 an entirely white dress, and started to their 

 ice-boat on a small sled for that pool shall 

 I call it ? on a mission purely of investigation. 



N 



