( 8 9 ) 



CHAPTER IV. 



CANADA. 

 I835-I838, 



ON Midsummer Day, 1835, Philip Gosse took a final 

 farewell of the little town which had been his home 

 for eight years, and set off, full of sanguine anticipations, 

 for a new life of liberty and enterprise. He walked from 

 Carbonear to Harbour Grace, where the Camilla was lying, 

 and went on board of her to sleep that night, to be joined 

 next morning by Mr. and Mrs. Jaques. In the course of 

 this, his last walk in Newfoundland, he saw in flight what 

 all those years he had been looking for in vain — a specimen 

 of the large yellow swallow-tail butterfly. He gave chase 

 to it at once, and, after a long run, succeeded in capturing it 

 easily with his hat, for it was very fearless. In the evening 

 a boy brought out to the vessel for him a large cockroach, 

 of a kind not native to North America, which he had 

 picked up in the streets, dropped perhaps out of some 

 cargo of sugar. This quaint species of tribute was his last 

 gift from Newfoundland, a country in which he was destined 

 never to set foot again. He took on board a variety of 

 chrysalides, caterpillars, and eggs, the premature transfor- 

 mation of some of which gave him a great deal of anxiety. 

 How completely he was absorbed in his duties as the nurse 

 of these insects may be amusingly gathered from his diary, 

 in which, for instance, in turning for some information 



