UP THE ESQUIMAUX RIVER. 75 



increase as in Labrador, over a third of whose surface is 

 given up to ponds and streams. The insides of the win- 

 dows of Mrs. Chevalier's house swarmed with these 

 fiends, the children's faces and necks were exanthema- 

 tous with their bites ; the very dogs, great shaggy New- 

 foundlanders, would run howling into the water and lie 

 down out of their reach, only their noses above the sur- 

 face. The armies of black flies were supported by light 

 brigades of mosquitoes. No wonder that these entomo- 

 logical pests are a perfect barrier to inland travel ; that 

 few people live during summer away from the sweep of 

 the high winds and dwell on the exposed shores of the 

 coast to escape these torments. They are effectual es- 

 toppels to inland exploration and settlement. 



Accepting our hostess's kind invitation to take dinner, 

 we sat down to a characteristic Labrador midday meal 

 of dough balls swimming in a deep pot of grease with 

 lumps of salt pork, without even potatoes or any des- 

 sert ; nor did there seem to be any fresh fish. The sta- 

 ples are bread and salt pork ; the luxuries game and 

 fish ; the delicacies an occasional mess of potatoes, 

 brought down the St. Lawrence once a year in Fortin's 

 trading schooner. 



Over the mantelpiece was a stuffed Canada grouse or 

 partridge and a ptarmigan in its winter plumage ; but I 

 was most -delighted with the gift of some Quaternary 

 fossils with which Mrs. Chevalier kindly presented me, 

 including large specimens of Cardita borealis, Apor- 

 rhais occidentalis and, fliost valuable of all, the valves of 

 a brachiopod shell, which I had also dredged on the 

 coast in ten fathoms, the Hypothyris psittacea. On our 

 return down the river we fished up the valves of the 



