A LABRADOR SPRING 
Shelldrake and Thunder Rivers were the next 
ports of call, and Magpie, a picturesque little 
town dominated by a long building with the 
letters C. R. C. painted on its roof. These 
letters stand for Collins, Robin Company, a 
firm that deals in fish, as was evident from the 
very extensive fish-flakes that were spread 
out on the hillside, and that looked from a dis- 
tance like a cultivated field. The town itself 
seemed to consist of only a dozen houses and a 
church built close to the rocky hill, which here 
comes to the sea. On our return at the end of 
June a fleet of twenty-six black, two-masted 
boats floated at their moorings, prepared to 
cover the fish-flakes with the harvest of the sea. 
Beyond the town, the Magpie River ' with its 
white cascade enters the sea. While we were 
watching from the steamer the wreath of mist 
that hovered about the falls, a trapper and 
trader with the Indians related the adventures 
*T am indebted to Prof. W. F. Ganong for a hint which 
probably explains the existence of the unexpected name of 
the Magpie River. The old as well as the present name 
here of the gannet is margot, and this has in former days 
been wrongly translated magpie. Gannets formerly 
abounded in this region and still occur, but magpies are 
not found here. 
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