NATURE IN ACADIE. 27 



although looking sound enough to the eye, being so 

 decayed that in treading upon them one's foot frequently 

 plunges into the heart. Very few birds were to be seen 

 here ; a crow at intervals sailed over, uttering hoarse 

 croaks, and I also saw a red-shouldered hawk passing 

 overhead with its somewhat irregular flight. 



A little further on I came to a level bottom crowded 

 with swamp-bushes, so tangled and dense that it would 

 have been hopeless to try to force a passage through 

 them if one left the cleared track. From its consider- 

 able extent and flatness, as well as from the fact that 

 the trees ceased abruptly about midway down the 

 shelving sides on either hand, I was convinced that a 

 shallow winding lake had once existed here, and at no 

 very distant time either, as was evinced by the spongy 

 nature of the marsh or bog from which the mal-formed 

 bushes sprang. Indeed through it still crept a sluggish 

 stream, the waters of which were the colour of brandy 

 from the masses of decaying leaves in its bed. 



Beyond this again I came upon a high and dry spruce- 

 wood of astonishing density, the trees being crowded so 

 together as to make it appear almost like the dusk of 

 evening while I was in the wood. The sombre drooping 

 branches of the spruce fir remind one of the plumes 

 upon a hearse more than anything else, while their 

 density almost effectually bars oat the light of day, 

 especially if the day should be a cloudy one. The 

 ground beneath was covered with spruce-needles, with 

 great boulders of granite protruding here and there and 

 never a blade of grass visible. The stillness here was 

 intense and almost oppressive, and was broken only 

 now and again by the twittering of the small birds 

 which occasionally came and settled in the trees, among 

 them being a few black-capped and Hudsonian chicka- 

 dees, and some numbers of golden-crowned kinglets. But 

 I came across no larger birds and not even any animals, 

 if I except a single red squirrel, which coughed and 

 spluttered angrily at me as I approached its lurking- 

 place in some low brushwood. Those who were not 

 acquainted with this fearless little squirrel, would be 



