TO MT. SYLVESTER WITH THE MICMACS 273 



with wonderful patience and good nature they worried on at 

 their task, whilst Johnny Benoit, who was little use in the 

 river, and I marched ahead over the bare open hills of sand 

 and stone, and looked for mythical willow grouse. The 

 Indians were dying for fresh meat, and I did my best to find 

 game of some sort, and the only luck I achieved was on 

 5th October, when I encountered a covey of six grouse, all 

 of which I killed by blowing their heads off with bullets from 

 the Mannlicher. Fortunately they were very tame, and only 

 flew a short distance after I had killed the first two, when 

 the remainder sat on a rock and stared within ten yards 

 before meeting their fate. 



Until recently the willow grouse {Lagopus terra-novce) 

 was very abundant in Newfoundland, and his cheery call, so 

 like that of our own grouse, could be heard at all seasons 

 in the barrens near the coast. In October the sportsmen of 

 St. John's are accustomed to go for a few days' shooting to 

 the barrens about Placentia, St. Mary's Bay — in fact, to all the 

 accessible parts of the south coast — and to hunt in company 

 with some local guide and a brace or two of pointers and 

 setters. Until 1903 excellent sport was to be had, as many 

 as twenty and even thirty brace being killed in a day ; but of 

 recent years a great diminution has taken place amongst the 

 birds, for now eight to ten brace would be considered a good 

 bag in the best places. Many reasons have been assigned 

 for this depreciation in the stock, but none of them seem to 

 explain matters satisfactorily. In fact, everything is in favour 

 of the grouse, since predatory animals, their chief foes, are 

 becoming very scarce, and no one molests the birds during 

 the breeding season. Over-shooting will not give the correct 

 answer, because the grouse are now just as sparsely distri- 

 buted through the immense tracts of unshot ground, where 



