or THE uudson's bay territory. 



141 



their flight. This flight is so well known that many sportsmen 

 line the shores of the island on the day named, and hundreds of 

 these pretty little birds, which are good eating, are shot. 

 Persons who have resided many years in Toronto have told me 

 that they did not remember an instance of variation in the date of 

 the arrival of these birds. 



Over almost every part of the wooded country of British 

 North America, east of the Eocky Mountains, the American hare 

 {Lepus americanus), usually called the " rabbit " by the Hudson's 

 Bay Company's people, is to be found in more or less abundance, 

 and it may not be generally known that every ten years these 

 animals are attacked by an epidemic so fatal, that from being 

 very numerous they gradually die off" until scarcely one is to be 

 seen. The survival of the fittest then begins to increase, and at the 

 end of ten years they are again at their maximum. I have myself 

 seen two of those cycles, and know men in the Hudson's Bay 

 Go's, service, who have witnessed four or five of such events. 



The latest years of abundance were 1885 and 1886, the hares 

 having increased gradually from 1880-81, which were years of 

 scarcity. The curious thing is that this takes place in the same 

 years over an extent of country about as large as one fourth of 

 Europe. It has been asserted by distinguished naturalists, among 

 them by my friend Sir John Eichardson, that the hares migrate ; 

 but this cannot be the case, for it is not known where they go to, 

 besides they are found sitting in their " forms " dead, usually under 

 small pine or spruce trees, the branches of which grow close to the 

 ground. I account for the disease in this way. The hares do not 

 spread themselves broadcast all over the country, but live in 

 colonies extending over a square mile or more, where the trees and 

 plants on which they feed are abundant, and here they become so 

 crowded together that the ground gets poisoned by their excreta, 

 as is the case with domestic poultry when kept too long on the 

 same land without being cleaned or shifted, and hence disease. 

 The grouse disease in Scotland I attribute to the same cause, 

 when too large a stock has been left on the moors. When the 

 grouse "pack," they have in winter some favourite resort to 

 which they fly during storms (chiefly from the west) for shelter, 

 and I have seen such places perfectly covered with droppings, 

 even in Orkney, where grouse are never very numerous. 



The efl'ect of these epidemics among the hares is peculiar, and 

 affects both the Indians and some of the fur-bearing animals, 

 as I shall endeavour to ej^plaiii. 



