158 CAPTAIN CARTWRIGHT'S 



would have bit me, when I attempted to give him 

 relief, could he have closed his mouth. Upon 

 returning to the house, I made Jack hold him 

 down, and then, with the assistance of a pair of 

 bullet moulds, in about three hours time, I ex- 

 tracted most of them. Some were broken too 

 short to take hold of, and I drew out several by 

 their points, which had penetrated quite through 

 the roof of his mouth and the cartilage of his nose. 



Tuesday, April 4, 1775. We singed the porcu- 

 pine, and made a good soup of it. 



It blew, snowed, and drifted exceedingly hard, 

 with sharp frost all day. 



Thursday, May 11, 1775. Some of the people 

 were employed in making a salmon-net, others in 

 collecting sealing-craft, and the rest in carrying 

 away the chips and dirt from about the house. I 

 caught an ermine ^ in the store-room. 



It rained till six in the morning, and froze after- 

 wards. 



Monday, May 15, 1775. I saw the first shell- 

 birds, divers and sandlarks.^ I went out a duck- 

 shooting in the evening, and killed four, and a pair 

 of shellbirds; and had a marten in one of my, 

 traps on Otter Point. 



Sunday, May 27, 1775. I went out in a skiff 

 this morning to Battle Harbour ^ and the adjacent 



^ Bonaparte's weasel, Putorius cicognanii. It is brown in summer and 

 white in winter. 



^ Probably sandpipers although he may refer to the horned lark or 

 shore lark, Otocoris alpestris. 



^ This is the first mention by Cartwright of that now important fishing- 

 station. 



