E 378 ] 
little while, nor is it known from whence they come, 
or whither they go. 
It is a very remarkable phenomenon, that feveral 
beafts, and fome of the birds, change their colour 
with the feafons. In the winter, your eye fcarcely 
beholds any thing but what is white. In this miferable 
climate, providence has armed mod animals with a 
defence againft the rigour of winter. The quadru- 
pedes are cloathed with a longer thicker hair, or 
fur ; to the birds are given foft down, and feathers of 
a clofer contexture, than thofe of milder countries. 
The principal fifh are whales, the cod-fish, and 
salmon. Of shell-fish, there are but few forts, 
and thefe in no great plenty, lobsters, there are 
none at all ; which is very remarkable; for, at a par- 
ticular part in the Streights of Bellifle, not more 
than five or fix leagues from Newfoundland, there 
are great abundance. 
Obferving that the feal-darts of every Indian were 
headed with the teeth of the sea-cow, I was led to 
inquire, how they came by them ; and particularly, 
as upon thefe inftruments they leemed to fix but 
little value. I was informed, that they purchafed 
them from the Indians of Nuckvank, about the 
latitude 6o° ; and that thofe Indians were vifited by 
multitudes of the fea-cows, in the winter, and that 
they killed a vaft number of them. 
My Indian, of whom I obtained this knowledge, 
could not tell me where the fea-cows went to in 
the fummer, becaufe he had never been beyond 
Nuckvank - 3 but he told me, that he had often 
heard the northern Indians fay, that, a good way 
farther 
