THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



when pursuing with much ardour an acquaint- 

 ance with the insects of Newfoundland, I used fre- 

 quently, in June and July, to rise at daybreak, 

 and seek a wild but lovely spot a mile or two 

 from the town. It was a small tarn or lake 

 among the hills, known as Little Beaver Pond. 

 Here I would arrive before the winds were up, for 

 it is at that season generally calm till after sun- 

 rise. The scene, with all its quiet beauty, rises up 

 to my memory now. There is the black, calm, 

 glassy pond sleeping below me, reflecting from its 

 unruffled surface every tree and bush of the dark 

 towering hills above, as in a perfect mirror. 

 Stretching away to the east are seen other ponds, 

 embosomed in the frowning mountains, connected 

 with this one and with each other in that chain- 

 fashion which is so characteristic of Newfound- 

 land ; while, further on in the same direction, be- 

 tween two conical peaks, the ocean is perceived 

 reposing under the mantle of the long dark clouds 

 of morning. There is little wood, except of the 

 pine and fir tribe, sombre and still ; a few birches 

 grow on the hill-sides, and a wild cherry or two ; 

 but willows hang over the water, and many 

 shrubs combine to constitute a tangled thicket 

 redolent with perfume. Towards the margin of 

 the lake, the ground is covered with spongy 

 swamp-moss, and several species of sednw and 

 kalmia, with the fragrant gale, give out aromatic 

 odours. The low, unvarying, and somewhat 

 mournful bleat of the snipes on the opposite hill, 

 and the short, impatient flapping of wings as one 

 occasionally flies across the water, seem rather to 

 increase than to diminish the general tone of re- 

 pose, which is aided, too, by yonder bittern that 

 stands in the dark shadow of an overhanging 

 bush as motionless as if he were carved in stone, 

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