FRESH-WATER SHELLS. 151 



have travelled but a short distance from their native 

 rock, as they are mostly large and angular, though some 

 are well rounded. The hill-tops, as well as the sides, 

 have been moulded by ice, roches moutondes being as dis- 

 tinctly marked here as in New England, and the ice 

 must have moved from the north, a little west ; but owing 

 to the weathering of the surface of the rocks in this 

 severe climate, no grooves could here be found to 

 determine the exact course of the ice. The ranges of 

 hills; however, and the longer diameter of the ice all 

 have a N.E. and S.W. course, while the bays and fjords 

 ran in a N.W. and S.E. direction, and this was the 

 course in general taken by the land-ice. 



Going ashore again after dinner and following up the 

 chain of lakes, I saw a prostrate canoe or paper birch a 

 foot in diameter, and another one, also lying down, but 

 smaller, only eight inches thick — good-sized trees for 

 Labrador: also spruce trees ten inches through. In the 

 ponds the cow-lily was just beginning to bud, though 

 not yet reaching the surface ; a little cyclas-like bivalve 

 (Pisidium steenbuchit), hitherto only known to occur in 

 Greenland, was common in the mud at the bottom of a 

 brook, while a slug {Limax agrestis) was found ashore, 

 under a stone, just laying its pellucid eggs ; and in an- 

 other brook, was found a fresh-water sponge. A robin's 

 nest containing three eggs with young nearly ready to 

 hatch was detected on the bough of a spruce, and it is 

 most probable that this bird raises but a single brood of 

 young on this coast. Under a hummock of moss and 

 sedges lay concealed a dormouse's nest. The curlew-berry 

 was still in blossom, its flowers like those of the blue- 

 berry, but of a beautiful pale purple. About the inner- 



