28 NATURE IN ACADIE. 



very properly disconcerted on hearing the peculiar 

 " whirring " or " rattle " emitted by it for the first time 

 while in these gloomy woods, for the sound commences 

 in close proximity to one and with startling suddenness, 

 giving rise, until the author of it is discovered, to un- 

 pleasant suggestions of " catamounts " and other unde- 

 sirable acquaintances which one is still likely to meet 

 with in this region. The " catamount," it should be 

 remarked, is the name by which the American wild-cat 

 is commonly known in the United States ; it is not at 

 all rare in the forests of Nova Scotia, and individuals 

 are shot annually within ten miles of Halifax. 



Leaving this somewhat gloomy region, I emerged 

 into a tract which consisted of smaller and more varied 

 growths of timber, and here I flushed a solitary ruffed 

 grouse, a bird belonging to the genus Bonasa* and known 

 almost invariably throughout North America as the 

 " partridge." 



I met an Indian towards Bedford, who told me that 

 he had recently killed two moose in the woods beyond 

 that place. The elk, or moose,f as it is called here, is 

 still, happily, not uncommon throughout the greater part 

 of Nova Scotia, but is never met with at the present 

 time within twelve or fifteen miles of Halifax. In the 

 more secluded forest fastnesses it still holds its own, 

 in company with the " cariboo," more familiar to most 

 people under its Old-World name of " reindeer." 



This is particularly the case in the western portion of 

 the province, amid the great wilderness of mountain, 

 lake and forest, stretching from the South Mountains 

 bordering on the Bay of Fundy away to, and beyond, 

 Rosignol, the largest of the Nova Scotian lakes, secluded 

 and solitary, with its winding expanse of limpid, sun- 

 bathed waters, out of which rise clusters of miniature 

 islands sheer from its unruffled surface, upon which falls 

 the dark shadows of the spruce and firs, which have 



* B. umbellus togata is the designation of the form inhabiting 

 Eastern Canada. 

 + Cervus alces. 



