84. LABRADOR 
northwest winds to prevent a speedy progress “down” the 
coast. Ashore, at any point from Belle Isle to Hebron, 
the ‘enemy’ assumes a new face much more repellent. 
Many a time has every naturalist ashore on the coast 
during July or August been driven from his work or through 
it by Labrador’s greatest plague — the almost incredible 
mosquito and black fly. In countless swarms of countless 
individuals they attack hands, face, and neck necessarily 
unprotected in the collection of specimens or in the manipu- 
lation of instruments. It is written that the grasshopper 
may be a burden, but he is a small angel of light compared 
to the Labrador “fly.” 
In Newfoundland the mosquito and gnat have had an 
apologist who, in all fairness, should be heard. Thus writes 
Whitbourne, the optimist: “Those Flies seeme to haue a 
great power and authority upon all loytering people that 
come to the New-found-land: for they have this property, 
that when they finde any such lying lazily, or sleeping in the 
Woods, they will presently bee more nimble to seize on 
them, than any Sargeant will bee to arrest a man for debt. 
Neither will they leaue stinging or sucking out the blood 
of such sluggards, untill, like a Beadle, they bring him to 
his Master, where hee should labour: in which time of 
Loytering, those Flies will so brand such idle persons in 
their faces, that they ae: be known from others, as the 
Turkes doe their slaves.” : 
But to the explorer, especially to the geologist, there is 
another side to the matter — an occasion for keen pleasure 
in spite of every disability in the way of advance or in 
comfort. Once beyond the fog-curtain so often let down 
over the Strait of Belle Isle, he can enjoy a climate made for 
