410 A JOURNEY TO THE 



the head of seventeen young, when not much larger than 

 walnuts. This bird remains in those parts as long as the 

 season will permit ; for in the year one thousand seven 

 hundred and seventy-five, in my passage from Cumberland 

 House to York Fort, I, as well as my Indian companions, 

 killed them in the rivers we passed through as late as the 

 twentieth of October, At those times they are entirely 

 involved in fat, but delicately white, and may truly be called 

 a great luxury. 



Besides the birds already described, there is a great variety 

 of others, both of land and water fowl, that frequent those 

 parts in Summer ; but these came not so immediately under 

 my inspection as those I have already described. 



[449] Of the Vegetable Productions. 



The vegetable productions of this country by no means 

 engaged my attention so much as the animal creation ; which 

 is the less to be wondered at, as so few of them are useful for 

 the support of man. Yet I will endeavour to enumerate as 

 many of them as I think are worth notice. 

 Gooseberries. The GOOSEBERRIES ^ thrive best in stony and rocky ground, 

 which lies open and much exposed to the Sun. But in those 

 situations few of the bushes grow to any height, and spread 

 along the ground like vines. The fruit is always most plenti- 

 ful and the finest on the under-side of the branches, probably 

 owing to the reflected heat from the stones and gravel, and 

 from being sheltered from all cold winds and fog by the 

 leaves. I never saw more than one species of Gooseberry 

 in any part of Hudson's Bay, which is the red one. When 

 green, they make excellent pies or tarts ; and when ripe are 

 very pleasant eating, though by no means so large as those 

 produced in England, 



[' Ribes oxyaca7it/ioides Linn. A species of very wide distribution in the 

 north. It is usually common about the trading posts.] 



