142 A summer's cruise to northern LABRADOR. 



saw-flies which appear with us early in June. The leaf- 

 rolling moths had not yet appeared ; a few bumble-bees 

 were humming their familiar tune, but, as we thought, in 

 a subdued minor key. 



Just before sunset we climbed a steep round hill, rising 

 perhaps 500 to 800 feet above the harbor, and what a 

 strange, peculiar scene was spread out before us ! Far 

 inland to the westward there was a fire in the woods, 

 and the smoke filled the air towards the interior and was 

 carried far seaward ; the sunlight passing through the 

 smoke gave a strange appearance to the glowing western 

 sky, the transformed light falling bronzed and red upon 

 the broad bay dotted with " skiers," or small low islets ; 

 and tinging the distant hills, one of which, a mountain 

 mass of gneiss, seemed to be over a thousand feet high. 



In the evening it grew cool and damp : a large cake 

 of floe-ice higher than the rail of our vessel floated down 

 upon us and stranded on the shore. All through the 

 night there was a continual sound of running water 

 dripping in streams from its under side, the gurgling and 

 trickling keeping one awake. 



The next day was cloudy, with a southeast wind, so 

 that we could not venture out of our harbor. I went 

 with a party of trout fishers from our vessel to a chain 

 of lakes containing, besides a few small trout, eels and 

 sticklebacks. The insects were more abundant in the 

 sheltered valleys than along the shore. In the shallow 

 ponds were chrysalids of the stone-flies and case-worms, 

 the latter having been found in the larval condition at 

 the Mecatinas. There were also pupal dragon-flies, 

 and under the moss and green herbs on the side of a 



