IN AUDUBON'S LABRADOR 



near the ground one is simply overwhelmed 

 with black flies. My gun is laid down, my 

 glasses adjusted; then, at the critical moment 

 when both hands are occupied with the bottle 

 and the pursuit of the agile spider, my glasses 

 fall from my nose, slippery with "fly-dope" and 

 perspiration, and the flies become unendurable. 

 Sometimes I spread a large bundle handker- 

 chief on the ground and beat the spruce bushes 

 so that the spiders fell on the handkerchief. 

 A knowledge of the distribution of spiders 

 helps to solve some unexpected problems, and 

 the work was well worth while. 



That afternoon I visited my friends P^re 

 Gamier and Pfere Gallix, and found them 

 standing outside the church looking like a 

 picture from Parkman. Dressed in their long 

 black robes, each carrying a canoe-paddle and 

 an axe, they looked as if they were about to 

 plunge into the wilderness to convert the In- 

 dians. One of their axes was shaped like an 

 Indian tomahawk, — a model that the Hud- 

 son's Bay Company has made for many years. 

 Their mission, however, was merely a short trip 

 up the Little Natashquan River in order to cut 

 birch branches for the petits pois in their garden. 

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