370 Life and Nature in Southern Labrador. [ April, 
arctic varieties, were days never to be forgotten. There is a 
nameless charm, to our mind, in everything pertaining to the 
far north, the arctic world, and we can easily appreciate the fasci- 
nation which leads one back again to the polar regions, even if 
hunger and frost had once threatened life. Arctic exploration 
has but begun, and though its victims will yet be numbered by 
the score, enthusiasts will yet attempt the dangers of arctic nav- 
igation, and fresh trophies will yet be won. 
Early in August, during the few still clear nights succeeding 
bright and pleasant days, we had auroras of wondrous beauty, 
not excelled by any depicted by arctic voyagers. 
On the roth of August the curlews appeared in great numbers. 
On that day we saw a flock which must have been a mile long 
and nearly as broad; there must have been in that flock four or 
five thousand! The sum total of their notes sounded at times 
like the wind whistling through the ropes of a thousand-ton ves- 
sel; at others the sound seemed like the jingling of multitudes 
of sleigh bells. The flock soon after appearing would subdivide 
into squadrons and smaller assemblies, scattering over the island 
and feeding on the curlew berries now ripe. The small snipe- 
like birds also appeared in flocks. The cloud berry was now 
ripe and supplied dainty tid-bits to these birds. 
By the 18th of the month the golden rods were in flower. 
Here, as has been noticed in arctic regions, few bees and wasps 
visit the flowers; the great majority of insect visitors are flies 
(Muscidz), especially the flesh fly and allied forms. A bumble- 
bee occasionally presents himself, more rarely a wasp, with an 
occasional ichneumon fly, but the two-winged flies, and those of 
not many species, were constant visitors to the August flowers. 
The black flies still remained to this date terrible scourges in 
calm weather, though in cloudy days and at night they mostly 
disappeared. : 
Wandering through the fog and drizzle along the mud flats on 
the northern side of the island I picked up Aporrhais occidentalis, 
Fusus tornatus, Cardita borealis, large valves of Saxicava rugosa, 
Buccinum and Astarte sulcata and compressa; these and Pecten 
us and other shells forming much the same assemblage as 
Thad dredged a few days previous out in the straits in fifty fath- 
_oms. The only recent shells lying about were shallow-water 
forms, such as the common clam, Ze/lina fusca and the razor 
