268 . FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE. 



constant occurrence) are covered .with cotton grass, and 

 Indian cups (Sarracenia), and the sphagnum with creep- 

 ing tendrils of the cranberry. Dry elevated bogs have 

 thick growths of huckle and blueberries (Gaylussacia 

 resinosa and Vaccinium Canadense), with the common 

 partridge berry, Labrador tea (Ledum), and sweet-scented 

 myrica, and open spots are carpeted with reindeer lichen. 

 Empetrum nigrum (locally misnamed heather), on the 

 numerous black berries of which the curlew and wild 

 goose feed, is a very abundant shrub, growing in the 

 open, with patches of ground juniper. 



It was probably to the profusion of berries (Vaccineoe) 

 that the original name of Newfoundland, given by its 

 early Norwegian visitors — Winland — was due, a country 

 frequently alluded to in Norwegian and Icelandic his- 

 torical records. The huckle-berries, especially, are so 

 large and juicy that they might naturally have passed 

 for the wild grapes for which the island was said to be 

 famous, and which, it is almost needless to state, do not 

 therein exist.* 



The birches appear to be the only deciduous timber trees 

 in Newfoundland, for, with the exception of the species 

 already mentioned and moose wood (Abies striatum) 

 — both mere shrubs — neither maple nor beech arc to be 

 found. On the western side of the island, where the soil 

 and climate approximate to those of the adjacent coasts 

 of the mainland, the hard-wood forests attain a fine 

 development, affording a plentiful supply of fuel, and 

 wood for manufacture. The yellow birch (Betula excelsa) 



* A tolerably palatable reel wiue is commonly made in Nova Scotia, by 

 the settlers, from blueberries. 



