68 LIFE AND NATURE IN SOUTHERN^ LABRADOR. 



doubtedly adorns the museum of the Lyceum of Nat- 

 ural History of Williams College. 



A weasel also visited our camp. The otter frequents 

 the brooks at the head of Salmon and Esquimaux rivers. 

 In winter they rarely come outside, i.e., to the coast. 



It .is well known that in Newfoundland the bears, 

 especially those living near shore, will eat fish, their diet 

 being mixed, and such bears are more savage than those 

 in the interior, which live chiefly on berries and ants. 

 While on Caribou Island a fisherman living a mile and 

 a half from us had his sea-trout nets invaded by two old 

 bears accompanied by a young one ; at low water they 

 would walk out to the nets, tearing them apart in order 

 to eat the fish. 



We were told that a Mr. Hay ward, an Englishman 

 who lives at a distance of two miles across the bay, had 

 about ten years since shot the last polar-bear seen on this 

 coast. 



Speaking of trout, there are two kinds : one living in 

 the brooks and lakes, the other the sea-trout, a handsome 

 fish about twelve inches in length, whose food we found 

 consisted of a surface-swimming marine shrimp, the 

 Mysis oculata, which lives in immense shoals. The sea- 

 trout is taken in nets, and so far as we experimented do 

 not, in salt water, rise to the fly. 



Although it was now the 15th of July, the warmer 

 summer weather had not yet come, we were told by the 

 people on shore. There is, however, scarcely any spring 

 in Labrador. The rivers open and the snow disappears 

 by the loth of June as a rule, and then the short summer 

 is at once ushered in. 



Potatoes, and especially turnips, are raised without 



