CANADA. 99 



" of brilliant scarlet and dccp-bluish wings and tail. The 

 "ruby-throated humming-bird, too, begins to appear, 

 " with its loud hum as it sucks the nectar of some 

 "syngenesious flower, its fine eyes darting hither and 

 " thither, its wings invisible from their rapid vibration, 

 "and its throat glowing in the sun like a flame of fire. 

 " Then the woodpeckers, with their caps of deep scarlet ; 

 " the pine grosbeak, with its pink and crimson plumage ; 

 *' and others, qicos mine, etc. You asked me if I had shot 

 " any turkeys or deer ; you know not how good a shot 

 " I am. I have shot at a squirrel three times successively, 

 "without doing him any 'bodily harm,' without even 

 *' the satisfaction of the Irish sportsman who made the 

 " bird * lave that, any way ; ' for the squirrel would not 

 " leave the tree, but continued chattering and scolding 

 *' me all the time. However, wild turkey is not found 

 " east of Lake Erie. Deer come round in the winter, 

 *'and sometimes get into our fields, and eat the standing 

 " corn in autumn ; I have seen some that were shot by 

 "a neighbour, but they were does and had no horns. 

 "They looked much like our fallow deer, but larger. 

 " The reindeer or caribou, as it is called, and the moose 

 " occasionally, but rarely, are taken. I have seen a few 

 ** Indians, belonging to the St. Francis tribe : some of 

 '* them encamped within a few miles of us last winter ; 

 "but they are a poor, debased, broken, half-civilized 

 " people, not the lordly savage, the red man of the far 

 " West ; not such as Logan or Metacom of Pokanoket." 

 He was not, however, entirely thrown upon nature for 

 intellectual resources at Compton. Teachers of the town- 

 ship schools, which were held in the winter, were in demand, 

 and he found no difficulty in obtaining an engagement for 

 the dead months of each of the three seasons he resided 

 in Canada. The teacher received free board and i^io for 



