12 NATURE IN ACADIE. 



striking spectacle as I approached the woods, and one 

 which I do not think I have ever seen equalled by our 

 English woods. 



Passing the head of the Arm, I ascepded the opposite 

 hill by the St. Margaret's Bay road and soon came to 

 Chocolate Lake, a small-sized lake, not more than a 

 quarter of a mile in breadth, lying to the left of the 

 road and shut in by private lands. The granite begins 

 to appear at the surface just here, but I noticed that 

 near the head of the Arm the surface is underlain by a 

 large amount of dark-looking sedimentary rock, strongly 

 impregnated with iron, and apparently formed as a de- 

 posit in some former estuary or mouth of a river. It is 

 in a fragmentary condition and mixed with clayey loam, 

 giving it a " pudding-like " appearance, and suggesting 

 the action of some mountain torrent (or, perhaps, 

 glacier) in the rounded form of the fragments. To- 

 wards Halifax, however, almost the whole hill consists 

 of this same kind of rock upheaved bodily. 



On the outskirts of the forest I observed several 

 juncos, or black snowbirds, hopping about the roads, but 

 on my nearer approach they quickly vanished into the 

 undergrowth. This interesting little bird is almost 

 silent except for an occasional slight chirp ; its plumage 

 is sober but pleasing, the bill being yellowish-white, 

 entire upper plumage and the throat and breast dusky 

 slate colour, and the abdomen and outer tail feathers 

 white ; in the female the upper plumage is greyish- 

 brown instead of dusky slate. 



Continuing along the road I came upon a series of 

 beautifully clear and sparkling lakes, hemmed in by the 

 picturesque forms of the granite hills, clothed with their 

 rich autumnal garb of many-hued foliage of the scrub 

 and underwood. These lakes drain from one to another 

 for miles, Chocolate Lake being the termination of the 

 , series. The road here ran for some distance along the 

 water's side, while on the left rose precipitous wooded 

 heights with occasionally a patch of low swampy ground 

 intervening, covered with a dense growth of spongy 

 moss and filled with swamp-loving bushes. 



