BIRD-LIFE IN LABRADOR. 



THE KOBIN 



Turdus migratorius. LINN. 



PERHAPS never in all my life have I started upon any task 

 that was placed before me with so much of expectant pleasure 

 as that with which I now begin to write out my notes upon the 

 birds of a region I dreamed about in my childhood, and rev- 

 eled in in my manhood. Among my first inspirations to seek out 

 Nature in her own abodes, in my youth, were a parcel of rob- 

 in's eggs, and an heirloom in the shape of an eider duck's, a 

 puffin's, and an auk's skin, which had been presents from a 

 friend to a brother, and which the enemies' bullets of a cruel war 

 had handed to me. The skins were labeled from u Belle Isle." 

 How I prized them ! The robin's eggs were from home. 

 Thus at the age of eight, a mere stripling, I formed the pur- 

 pose, in my own mind, to study and explore "bird life" from 

 the one place to the other. Although the whole of the inter- 

 mediate space has not been gone over, and may never be fully 

 searched personally, yet I have examined carefully these goals 



