IN TIMBER AND BRCLfiE. 217 



the bird locally known as a " robin " being regarded in the 

 light of a prize. 



Recently some speculative individual has introduced five 

 thousand Swiss rifles into the province of Quebec alone. 

 These weapons, which carry a very killing cartridge, are 

 retailed at about $3.50 apiece, and at this not exorbitant 

 price the original stock of five thousand has been nearly 

 sold out ; so that, although it is to be doubted whether the 

 majority of the purchasers will ever push far afield, it yet 

 is certain that any person walking in the " bush " near a 

 village will be well advised for the future to proclaim his 

 presence by whistling, or song, or in some other definitely 

 human manner. Should he fail to do so, the consequences 

 may easily be disastrous, as the temptation to try his rifle 

 on any creature that moves in the woods may prove irre- 

 sistible to the local pot-hunter, especially as a moose very 

 occasionally, and whitetail almost habitually, wander about 

 the isolated dwellings of man. 



A first trip in any country is invariably fertile in the 

 gaining of experience, and even more so in the paying for 

 it a truth which we realised some days later when, having 

 searched over a good many acres of ridge and marsh, we 

 failed to find any more material sign of caribou than was 

 afforded by a rare track, and once, in a thicket of spruce, 

 a single tree stripped of its bark and branches some seven 

 weeks previously by a stag cleaning the velvet from his 

 horns. 



For the rest, the woods were not wanting in occasional 

 squirrels, ruffed grouse, called in Canada the hardwood 

 partridge, the Canadian grouse, which also owns the local 

 name of spruce partridge, porcupines, and hares. Yet for 

 the most part the Canadian woods are silent, so silent that 

 on a still day you may sit for an hour at a time without 

 hearing or seeing sign of life. One animal only is omni- 

 present you come across its work many times a day 



