202 ACCESSIBLE FIELD SPORTS. 



twenty -five yards above my position. This animal, 

 judging from his size, must have been quite four 

 hundred pounds a size much greater than it gene- 

 rally attains in the north-west. Until he had firmly 

 gained his footing he had not observed us, and the 

 ludicrousness of his alarm and astonishment when he 

 became aware of our vicinity was laughable in the 

 extreme. Off he went with a rush into the brush, 

 making dry and withered limbs crash before him. 



As the constant and severe attentions of the flies 

 put a nap out of the question, and I had become sur- 

 feited with tobacco from the number of cigars I had 

 consumed, under the fallacy that the smoke would 

 deprive me of their company, I was compelled as a 

 last 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 enter- 

 ing the scrub bush the mosquitoes became more 

 numerous, and I have little hesitation in saying, that 

 the bloodsuckers 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 suc- 

 ceeded in gaining more open ground. Rising towards 

 the upper ridges of high lands, the squawberry and 



