THE DOCTOR “runs DOWN” A NATIVE. 485 
tho veracity of tlio whaler who told ub that “black bears 
were as abundant in the forests as one could desire.” I 
must not forget to add that both bust-proof and his mas- 
ter accoiDpanied him upon this excursion, and shared in 
his bitter disappointment. These squirrels were of totally- 
ditferent species, though they were both amply provided 
Avith fur against the excessive cold of their winters. One 
of them was about as large as an ordinary gray squirrel, 
of a dark grayish colour, and with a jet-black and flowing 
tail, while the other was much smaller, of claret hue, 
with narrow brown stripes running down his back, and 
possessed of very little tail at all. The former fell a vic- 
tim to bust-proof, and the latter was run doAvn by the 
doctor and caught alive. These animals seemed to live 
on a little nut which we found in great quantities in the 
burr of the shaft-like spruce pine, whose growth was the 
densest I had ever witnessed in forest-trees. We subse- 
quently bought whole baskets of these nuts from the na- 
tives at the mouth of the Amoor, partly as food for the 
doctor’s pet, and partly because they were very tine for 
us to nibble at ourselves. They were about the size of 
a buckshot, of irregular formation, and tasted very much 
like the meat of the hickory-nut. Their covering was more 
of a skin than a shell, and might he swallowed without in- 
convenience. The trees on which this nut grows were, as 
I have already remarked, very abundant and straight ; and, 
as we expected soon to give out of coal and have to carry 
sail quite heavy in consequence, we cut and rafted a num- 
l)or of them to be worked into spars in case of necessity. 
A hundred thousand ships might have loaded with simi- 
lar timber from that single island. The second evening 
