368 Life and Nature in Southern Labrador. [ April, 
Here we met the black flies in full force, and although we had 
been fearfully annoyed by them in rambling over Caribou island, 
here they were astounding, both for numbers and voracity. The 
black fly lives during its early stages in running water. The in- 
sect finds nowhere in the world such favorable conditions for its 
increase as in Labrador, over a third of whose surface is given up 
to ponds and streams. The insides of the windows of Mrs. 
Chevalier’s house swarmed with these fiends, the children’s faces 
and necks were exanthematous with their bites; the very dogs, 
great shaggy Newfoundlanders, would run howling into the water 
and lie down out of their reach, only their noses above the sur- 
face. The armies of black flies were supported by light brigades 
of mosquitoes. No wonder that these entomological pests are a 
perfect barrier to inland travel; that few people live during sum- 
mer away from the sweep of the high winds and dwell on the ex- 
posed shores of the coast to escape these torments. They are 
effectual estoppers to inland exploration and settlement. 
Accepting our hostess’ kind invitation to take dinner, we sat 
down to a characteristic Labrador midday meal of dough balls 
swimming in a deep pot of grease with lumps of salt pork, with- 
out even potatoes or any dessert; nor did there seem to be any 
fresh fish. The staples are bread and salt pork; the luxuries 
game and fish; the delicacies an occasional mess of potatoes, 
brought down the St. Lawrence once a year in Fortin’s trading 
schooner. 
Over the mantelpiece was a stuffed Canada grouse or partridge 
and a ptarmigan in its winter plumage, but I was most delighted 
with the gift of some Quaternary fossils with which Mrs. Cheva- 
lier kindly presented me, including large specimens of Cardita 
borealis, Aporrhais occidentalis and, most valuable of all, the 
valves of a brachiopod shell, which I had also dredged on the 
coast in ten fathoms, the Hypothyris psittacea. On our return 
down the river we fished up the valves of the Pecten magellant- 
cus, the great scollop shell, which lives in five or six feet of water. 
This mollusk, which is locally known in Labrador by the name 
of “ pussel,” we afterwards obtained in quantity, fried it in butter 
and meal, finding it to be delicious eating, combining the prop- 
erties of the clam and oyster, the single large adductor muscle 
being far more tender than that of the c common scollop of South- 
ern New acne and New York. 
