NATURE IN ACADIE. 43 



almost identical with that of our great titmouse ; it 

 consisted of the three notes only, however, there being 

 no quick repetition of them as in our bird. 



Just before dusk I noticed fourteen geese — probably 

 Canada geese — flying over the town from west to east 

 at a considerable height, and apparently following the 

 coast line. My attention was drawn to them by their 

 occasionally-uttered cry, a deep honk, honk, and they 

 were then flying in straight single file of twelve, with 

 two on one side abreast, but soon afterwards they 

 opened out at this side into an irregular V-shape. 



It was on this night, also, that I witnessed a beauti- 

 ful aurora to the northward. It lasted several hours, 

 during which period the faint shifting rays of light 

 illumined the whole sky to the north and north-east, 

 producing at one time a most striking and beautiful 

 effect. 



The morning of the 1 5th opened very dull and cloudy, 

 and there was not a breath of wind to be felt, while 

 there seemed to be a promise of snow later in the day. 

 I left home soon after daybreak, and after two or three 

 miles' walk struck the woods near Three Mile House, 

 on the Bedford Basin, from whence I passed through 

 continuous dense woods in a north-westerly direction 

 all the morning. 



Soon after entering the woods I came upon a party 

 of golden-crowned kinglets in a dense undergrowth of 

 young firs, and except for these there was hardly a bird 

 to be found in this part of the forest. Some of the firs 

 here were of a prodigious size, and near the summit of 

 one I noticed what appeared to be an unfinished nest of 

 a hawk or crow. 



A little farther on I came to a small sluggish stream 

 flowing through a swampy hollow. The brandy- 

 coloured water was fringed upon either side with 

 curiously-contorted swamp bushes, while here and 

 there a fallen trunk bridged the stream; but I had 

 learnt by experience not to trust these seeming bridges, 

 for although looking sound enough to the eye, they are 

 usually mere shells from which the heart has long since 



