SOME NOVA SCOTIA BIRDS. 



BY SPENCER i'R OTTER. 



fHE penmsula of Nova Scotia has a ragged coast-line ; the land 



Z f ' ^'^^"^'^ "^^"^ «-d-like inlets. Four 



rocky headlands, scarred and worn, alternate with stretches of 

 sand and single; bowlder-strewn ledges fringe the shores and 

 sub™ar.ne banks reach far seaward. These sands seen, to ha^e 

 nnpressed d.e early French explorers who gave the na^e " Sable " 

 to the southern cape of the peninsula, as well as to a river and 

 also to a group of low islands which lie at some distance off the 

 eastern coast. The edge of the great Atlantic fog bank hovers 

 over these shores, and creeping in with the southerly wind wrap 

 the land ui its gloomy mists, often for days at a time ' 



Back of this coast the voyager along the southern shores sees a 

 and of pointed trees - spruce and balsam fir - rising into a low 

 ndge that is succeeded inland by other similar ridges; a vast 

 unbroken stretch of evergreen wilderness from shore to shore' 



old cleanngs a profusion of wild strawberries were slowly ripening 

 The white flowers of the bunchberry (Cor„us canaLsl), the 

 chickweed wintergreen (r..^.../.>), and the two-leaved Solomon's 

 seal {Um/ohum) showed everywhere through the woods The 

 undergrowth of this region, except where dense forests of balsam 

 fir had excluded sunlight, was for the most part made up of brake 



