BIRDS THAT PREY AND SOME THAT DO NOT 493 



stocks, pilloried and caged, to be exhibited to the 

 church-goers along with the wolfheads which were 

 nailed over the church doors, the birds sang to the 

 poor wretches and even made nests in the dried 

 wolfheads. 



During the migrating season the flocks of wild 

 pigeons darkened the skies and in the Carolinas 

 and other Southern States the waters were covered 

 by myriads of wild fowl; there 

 were acres .and acres of ducks 

 floating in the lagoons which only 

 swam aside to allow the boats to, 

 pass through them ; the mud flats 

 and shoals were crowded with 

 shore birds, plovers, snipe, 

 f ^^ H _ mmu ^_^ herons, and other waders. It 

 was the golden age of bird life 

 in America. 



I have just returned from a 

 trip in the northern wilderness, 

 a few hundred miles south of Hudson Bay, 

 where I spent two weeks in company with six 

 Indians and two white men on a canoe trip, pad- 

 dling up the Ouiatchouanish River to a long, dry 

 portage, which led us over a sun-baked hill denuded 

 of timber by forest fires to the shores of some beau- 

 tiful lakes. After leaving the lakes we traveled 

 down the River Croche until we came to the 

 pioneer settlements of La Toque. To a person 

 familiar with the birds of the United States this 



