THE PORT OF BREST 



The botanist and I explored the hinterland 

 on the following day; it was a land of rocky 

 peaks and lakes and bogs with small patches 

 of forest in the protected valleys. The peaks 

 were hills in height, four or five hundred feet 

 at the most, but mountains in contour and 

 general appearance. As Shaler says, "if a 

 mountain or hill goes about it aright, it can 

 get an amazing dignity without assaulting the 

 heavens in its efforts." Although the bogs were 

 small, owing to the multitude of rocky peaks, 

 yet deep, soft moss was everywhere, even on 

 the mountains, except on the exposed rocks. 



At Shecatica we had seen several spruce 

 grouse with their young, and we found them 

 common here. It is a bird that is easily ap- 

 proached, often within a few feet, before it 

 takes alarm and flies away. The young, eight 

 or more in a brood, were only about a quarter 

 grown, but able to fly well. They generally 

 flew off and disappeared while their mother 

 remained on the ground, where she was diffi- 

 cult to see unless among white reindeer moss. 

 Sometimes she took to a spruce tree, where 

 she cocked up her tail, nodded her head and 

 croaked and clucked nervously. In the spring 



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