126 A summer's cruise to northern LABRADOR. 



on the harbor side of Henley Island, and in shore-col- 

 lecting. The rock-weeds or fuci do not grow luxuriantly 

 on the coast of Labrador, but are stunted and dwarfed, 

 like their more highly-born relatives of the .yegetable 

 kingdom ashore. Below tide-mark, however, though 

 the tide on the Labrador coast rises and falls only two 

 or three feet, the Devil's Apron or Laminaria is seen, 

 but not so common and large as on the coast of Maine. 

 Life between tide-marks is scanty compared with the 

 New England coast. We never detected the common 

 whelk that gives the purple dye {Purpura lapillus) ; 

 but the two Littorinas (Z. rudis, less commonly L. lit- 

 toralis) were common ; these are circumpolar forms, 

 abounding at the water's edge at Greenland. 



In this region scarcely a sea-bird was to be seen, and 

 raiely even a gull ; but on one occasion three ducks, 

 while a lonely raven flew about the cliff. Insect life 

 was scanty, and with the animals and plants showed 

 in its appearance a strange intermixture of what at 

 home would have been characteristic of early April and 

 late May. Frogs are seen here, we were told : in the 

 garden the turnips were just up. 



Thirty years ago there was but a single house at 

 Henley Harbor, and none at Red Bay, where now there 

 are thirty. The fish ^and birds here, meanwhile, have 

 vastly decreased in ^numbers. The fish are principally 

 cod, salmon, and herring. Old Captain French, our 

 pilot, never saw a hake on the Labrador coast, and only 

 two haddock, though both kinds are abundant and 

 troublesome to cod fishermen at Bay Chaleur, on the 

 New Brunswick shore. 

 ^ Detained another day by head-winds and rain in the 



