A LABRADOR SPRING 
was the bearberry. This also came into 
flower before we left. 
Although not a new leaf bud had opened, 
there was one conspicuous exception to the 
flowerless vegetation, and this was the moun- 
tain saxifrage which grew in great abundance 
on the limestone cliffs of Esquimaux Island. 
It is a tufted moss-like plant, the leaves ever- 
green and inconspicuous, but the flowers, of a 
wonderful shade of pink, so crowded the ends 
of the short stems that they formed glorious 
masses of colour, hanging in festoons from the 
cliffs or studding the rocks in great bosses. 
It was in full flower when we first discovered it 
on May 25th, and it exhaled a fragrance like 
that of the trailing arbutus, but much more 
delicate. 
Another sign of spring was the continued 
trilling of toads which greeted my ears that first 
evening at the Pointe aux Esquimaux, — 
a sound which is always associated in my mind 
with pussy willows and a brown, wet country- 
side, but with the glorious promise of bright 
flowers, migrating birds and the coming of sum- 
mer. Although this sound is at times almost 
overpowering in its intensity in New England 
17 
