> = ” x WwW 2 2 ee —_——eo, — = ————d —eeom =" —S —————_— ™ iH j id ‘ Al a ie | ‘ eae rt 8? Tee rene ‘ tr Di Leet yites Y " } r ore ary cyt ' my ; | , / hp why ‘ts ‘ id oie a el | ii, Seas a he wy eh hh Ce I watt ' Cos Gerd | Ay ’ iy 4 } y+ mm v4 hey! } : ‘ a » Oe preys ‘ wa’ ii Te er ek Lt Pa, ee Sk P| M i Dla AOL TEL nich Whe A Mee Nasa: ay > pe Ve w teh Db td toned ® | iiady ai yy ely ty LN eres MEA PA: ear bet Hee We a AL I eG chy Ven ' + y yy + \ Peat Cheha | . 4 Peon ara hensive bh GME | oe) ee tah } ; \ yar \ Ny thy te wy Value an He PP eA aay NaN! ria tty Tih by Us tetoN HY : | i Dae | HOVERS ANH Tres Nie gens a rein 1 v4 ‘ i wd ver Py ’ ry yrere ‘ Y Font oe 4 oe PVA re WO ak Hah Nay ‘i ty? ‘ ‘ . oe we a ce ea VS yhy CRONE ey MO Rey wk Pe AE f ho tin vue) Vit See Fed any yy) Pant pee tye Miehs ta Net @io ea eae i Wh} ; tress Kian rei | ? : PAST si ua esate : : ! hyitthse) cts aicataragan Nove : fh rh¥etey Heh indie | ive Ai ” i : , | . We wee seeks if Hastalon iy . ” vey vise SHUG CALC a ) : id i . ; aah , i +9) We hie “bb iy { ’ ra i yee Le] J ‘ Hoyrhed ‘ a] y 3 | 4 ic vere ' , pr . Vad ‘ POW TH LOA, eat t SNe CNen ts * HANA Ww ‘ ‘ ( ' { | ‘ hag > Od el a" ' i — ee a 4 — a O 1e) an oa ue ae ad = (4) z ao. oe t A ong °o~ PMO reas Se Je oO Zs eteaaea te SE See - - aS) == * 4.2 ‘ . Oo De gti ne ela it al@- = eet . on sy 7 * 4 a, te = F
oe ee ro _ <4
a a a hel "ys
eC ae a oe sal vee — 2
ie ae RT nk a gE iar me Ses = hoe 2
7:
me
¥ x
* UpTomoay. 4. reyeE
u
~
CUPS" LNOYL MOO“ NVOIYANV AHL
+
Je
|
‘
MF |
“=
*
¥
7
IN THE LOWER PROVINCES OF THE
CANADIAN «DOMINION.
-
¥
ae ‘BY (CAP'EAEN
—
~~ . of
ROYAL, ARTILLERY.
>
CAMPBELL * HARDY,
‘AUTHOR OF “‘SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE NEW WORLD.”
’
a > >
View on Gold River, N.S.
LONDON:
1869. +.
|The Right of Translation is Reserved, ]
— e P
: ss
il
*
¢ > -
Sr ~
o
-- » CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
_
FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
-
SKETCHES OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY
:
‘4
4
:
?
i)
;
PREFACK.
a canes
THe Author having brought out several years since
a work on sporting in Atlantic America, which was
favourably received, is induced to present the present
volume of more recent experiences, especially as the
interval since elapsed has been unmarked by the produc-
tion of any English publication of a similar kind.
Many inquiries concerning the sports and physical
features of the British Provinces bordering on the
Atlantic, evidently made by those who meditate seeking
a transatlantic home, appear from time to time in the
columns of sporting periodicals, and elicit various and
uncertain replies.
The Author’s sojourn in the Acadian Provinces having
extended over a period of fifteen years, he trusts that the
information here afforded will prove useful to such querists.
It will appear evident that he has formed a strong
attachment to the country, its scenery and wild sports,
and by some it will probably be said that the pleasures
of forest life are exaggerated in his descriptions of a
country possessing neither grandeur of landscape nor
inducements to the “sensational” sportsman. ‘There is,
however, a quiet, ever-growing charm to be found in the
vil PREFACE.
woodlands or on the waters of Acadie, which those who
have resided there will readily admit. Many who have
touched at its shores as visitors within the Author’s
recollection, have made it their home; whilst those of his
vocation who have been called away, have almost invari-
ably expressed a hope of speedy return.
Several of the descriptive sporting scenes found in this
work will be recognised as having appeared in “The
Field,” and the Author begs to express his appreciation
of the Editor’s courtesy in permitting their republication.
The notices on the natural history of the Elk and Beaver
are reproduced, with slight alterations, from the pages _
of “Land and Water,’ with the kind consent of the |
managers, the articles having appeared therein over the
~ signature of “ Alces.”
The acknowledgments of the Author are also due to
several old friends across the Atlantic—to “The Old
Hunter,” for anecdotes of camp life, and to Dr. Ber-
nard Gilpin for his valuable assistance in describing
the game fish, and in preparing the illustration of the
American Brook Trout.
‘CONTENTS.
—- 4 -—-
: CHAPTER I.
oy PAGE
THE MARITIME PROVINCES . . 0s sw we
er CHAPTER II.
PEE FORESTS OF ACADIN. 2-0} se eB
a CHAPTER III.
E ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND THE NEW WORLDS ele =
ie
-
ca
oie
= CHAPTER IV.
-« OHAPTER VI.
OAR eG as SOIR ee
a ‘CHAPTER VIL
TAKE pwames: .- 5. iy Re aS eat i Vf ee
vill CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VIII.
CAVE LODGERS
CHAPTER IX.
ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING .
CHAPTER X.
NOTES ON NEWFOUNDLAND
CHAPTER XI.
CAMPING OUT.
CHAPTER XII.
_ THE PROGRESS OF THE SEASONS
APPENDIX.
NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS IN THE FOREST
ACCLIMATISATION IN ACADIE
PAGE
194
211
261
. =
307
336
344
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND ANECDOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY . 355
er ee >
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
a ee
: SALMO FONTINALIS (COLOURED). Frontispiece.
VIEW on GOLD RIVER, N.S. Vignette for Title Page.
THE LUMBERER’S CAMP IN WINTER . ; . To face Page 28
ELMS IN AN INTERVALE ane eC Rae Sat at onny Te 44.
MOOSE RIDING-DOWN A TREE. ; ‘ ; % 72
MOOSE-CALLING BY NIGHT . ; : Ae m 105
HORNS OF THE CARIBOO. : . : : fs 128
‘on THE BARRENS .° . ‘ : : eee P 155
BEAVER-DAM ON THE TOBIADUC . : ; : a! 173
MUSQUODOBOIT HARBOUR : : : Ses 5 227
THE PABINEAU FALLS, RIVER NEPISIGUIT . ; * 244
THE GRAND FALLS, NEPISIGUIT . ; Ameer - 254
» Pa? cy. x¢
~ Ms @
FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
CHAPTER I.
THE MARITIME PROVINCES.
Pappiine down a picturesque Nova-Scotian stream
called the Shubenacadie some ten years since in an
Indian canoe, it occurred to me to ask the steersman .
the proper Micmac pronunciation of the name. He re-
plied, “We call ’em ‘Segéebenacadie.’ Plenty wild
potatoes—segéeben—once grew here.” “ Well, ‘ acadie,’
Paul, what does that mean?” I inquired. ‘“ Means—
where you find ’em,” said the Indian. 3
The termination, therefore, of acadie, signifying a
place where this or that is found, being of frequent
occurrence in the old Indian names of places, seems
to have been readily adopted by the first permanent
settlers in Nova Scotia to designate an extensive dis-
trict, though one with uncertain limits—the Acadie
of the followers of Mons. De Monts in the first
decade of the seventeenth century comprising the pre-
sent provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and
Prince Edward Island, with a portion of the State of
2 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
Maine.* The peninsula of Nova Scotia was, however,
Acadie proper, and herein was laid the scene of the
expulsion of the French neutrals from their settlements
by the shores of Minas Basin and elsewhere—an event
round which has centred so much misconceived sym-
pathy of authors and poets, but which has since been
shown to have been a most justifiable and necessary
* Having had access since these lines were written to Dr. Dawson’s
second edition of “Acadian Geology,” recently published by Macmillan
and Co., I was at once struck with the author’s account of the derivation
of the term “ Acadie,” which he has given in language so similar to my
own (even to instancing the Indian name of the same river), that I think
it but just to notice this fact—his work being produced some time prior to —
my own. From this standard work on the Geology of the British Pro-.
vinces, I will also quote a few passages in further exemplification of the
subject.
The author is informed by the Rev. Mr. Rand, the zealous Indian Mis-
sionary of the Acadian Indians, who has made their ways and language his
whole study for a long period of years, and translated into their tongue the
greater portion of Scripture, that “the word in its original form is Kady
or Cadie, and that it is equivalent to region, field, ground, land, or place,
but that when joined to an adjective, or to a noun with the force of an
adjective, it denotes that the place referred to is the appropriate or special
place of the object expressed by the noun or noun-adjective. Now in
Micmac, adjectives of this kind are formed by suffixing ‘a’ or ‘wa’ to
the noun. Thus Segubbun is a ground-nut ; Segubbuna, of or relating to
ground-nuts ;. and Segubbuna-Kaddy is the place or region of ground-nuts,
or the place in which these are to be found in abundance,”
As further examples of this common termination of the old Indian
names of places, Dr. Dawson gives the following :—
Soona-Kaddy (Sunacadie). Place of cranberries.
Kata-Kaddy. Eel-ground.
Tulluk-Kaddy (Tracadie). Probably place of residence ; dwelling place.
Buna-Kaddy (Bunacadie, or Benacadie). Is the place of bringing forth ;
a place resorted to by the moose at the calving-time.
Segoonuma-Kaddy. Place of Gaspereaux ; Gaspereaux or Alewife river.
Again, “Quodiah or Codiah is merely a modification of Kaddy in the
language of the Maliceets” (a neighbouring tribe dwelling in New Bruns-
wick, principally on the banks of the St. John), “and replacing the other
form in certain compounds. Thus Nooda-Kwoddy (Noodiquoddy or
Winchelsea Harbour) is a place of seals, or, more literally, place of
seal-hunting. Pestumoo-Kwoddy (Passamaquoddy), Pollock-ground, &c.
&e.”
THE MARITIME PROVINCES. 3
step, from their unceasing plottings with the Indians
against British dominancy, receiving, of course, strong
support from the French, who still held Louisburg and
Quebec.
Most interesting, and indeed romantic, as is the early
history of Acadie during her constant change of rulers
until the English obtained a lasting possession of Nova
Scotia in 1713, and finally in 1763 were ridded of their
troublesome rivals in Cape Breton by the cession on the
part of the French of all their possessions in Canada and
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a history political and statis-
tical of the Lower Provinces would be quite irrelevant to
the general contents of a work like the present. The
subject has been ably and exhaustively treated by the
great historian of Nova Scotia, Judge Haliburton, and
more recently, and in greater bulk, by Mr. Murdoch.
Of their works the colonists are justly proud, and when
one reads the abundant events of interest with which the
whole history of Nova Scotia is chequered, of its steady
progress and loyalty as a colony, and of the men it has
produced, one cannot wonder at the present distaste
evinced by its population on being compelled to merge
their compact history and individuality in that of the
New Dominion.
An outline sketch of the physical geography of
Acadie is what is here attempted, and a description
of some of the striking features of this interesting
locale.
Nova Scotia is a peninsula 256 miles in length, and
about 100 in breadth ; a low plateau, sixteen miles wide,
connects it with the continental province of New Bruns-
wick. The greatest extension of the peninsula, like that
B 2
4 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
of similar geographical conformations in all parts of the
earth, is towards the south. The actual trend of its At-
lantic coast is from north-east to south-west—a direction
in which are extended its principal geological formations
agreeing with the course of the St. Lawrence and of the
Apellachian chain of mountains which terminate at Cape
Gaspé. Its dependency, Cape Breton, is an island, 100
miles long, and eighty broad, separated from Nova Scotia
by the narrow, canal-like Gut of Canseau, in places but
half a mile in width—“ a narrow transverse valley,” says
the author of “ Acadian Geology,” “excavated by the
currents of the drift period.” The largest and the greater —
proportion of the rivers flow across the province, through
often parallel basins, into the Atlantic, indicating a
general slope at right angles to the longer axis. The
Shubenacadie is, however, a singular exception, rising
close to Halifax harbour on the Atlantic side of the pro-
vince, and crossing with a sluggish and even current
through a fertile intervale country to the Bay of Fundy.
The Atlantic coasts of Nova Scotia are indented to a
wonderful extent by creeks and arms of the sea, often
running far inland—miniature representations of the
Scandinavian fiords. As might be expected, as accom-
paniments to such a jagged coast-line, there are numerous
islands, shoals, and reefs, which render navigation dan-
gerous, and necessitate frequent light-houses. The
outlines of the western shores are much more regular,
with steep cliffs and few inlets, somewhat similar on
comparison with the same features of the continent itself
as displayed on its Atlantic and Pacific coasts. To these
harbours and to the fisheries may be attributed the
position of the capital of Halifax on the Atlantic side.
-
THE MARITIME PROVINCES. 5
All, or nearly all, the best portion of the country, in an
agricultural point of view, lies in the interior and to the
westward. The old capital, Port Royal, afterwards named
by the English Annapolis Royal, has a most picturesque
position at the head of a beautiful bay, termed Anna-
polis Basin, on the western side of the province, and is
backed by the garden of Nova Scotia, the Annapolis
Valley, which extends in a direction parallel to the
coast, sheltered on both sides by steep hills crowned with
maple forests for more than sixty miles, when it termi-
nates on the shores of Minas Basin in the Grand Pré of
the French Acadians.
The whole surface of the country is dotted with count-
less lakes. Often occurring in chains, these give rise to
the larger rivers which flow into the Atlantic. In fact,
all the rivers issue directly from lakes as their head
waters ; these latter, again, being supplied by forest
brooks rising in elevated swamps. In the hollows of the
high lands are likewise embosomed lakes of every variety
of form, and often quite isolated. Deep and intensely
blue, their shores fringed with rock boulders, and gene-
rally containing several islands, they do much to diversify
the monotony of the forest by their frequency and pic-
turesque scenery. In a paper read before the Nova-
Scotian Institute in 1865, the writer, Mr. Belt, believes
that the conformation of the larger lake basins of Nova-
Scotia is due to glaciation, evidenced by the deep fur-
rows and scratchings on their exposed rocks, the rounding
of protuberant bosses, and the transportation of huge
boulders—the Grand Lake of the Shubenacadie chain
being a notable instance.
Although the country is most uneven, sometimes
6 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
boldly undulating, at others broken up in extremely
irregular forms, the only absolute levels being marginal
on the alluvial rivers, there are no lofty mountains in
Nova Scotia. The Cobequid Hills, skirting Minas Basin
towards the junction of the province with New Bruns-
wick, are the most elevated, rising to 1200 feet above
the sea. This chain runs for more than 100 miles nearly
due east and west. No bare peaks protrude; it is
everywhere clothed with a tall luxuriant forest, with
a predominance of beech and sugar-maple.
Very similar in its general physical features to Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick is distinguished by bolder
scenery, larger rivers, and greater dimensions of the
more important conifers. From the forests in its northern
part arise sugar-loaf mountains with naked summits—
outlying peaks of the Allechanies—which occur also in
Maine, more frequently, and on a still larger scale. The
mountain scenery where the Restigonche divides the
Gaspé chain from the high lands of northern New Bruns-
wick is magnificent ; and the aspects of Sussex Vale, and
of the long valley of the Miramichi, are as charming as
those of the intervales of Nova Scotia. |
The little red sandstone island of Prince Edward, lying
in a erescent-shape, in accordance with the coast lines of
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in a deep southern bay
of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is the most fertile of the
three provinces, and possesses the attractive scenery of
high cultivation pleasantly alternating with wood and
water.
The area of the Acadian provinces is as follows :—Of
Nova Scotia, with Cape Breton, 18,600 square miles ; of
New Brunswick, 27,100 square miles; and of Prince
THE MARITIME PROVINCES. 7
Edward Island, 2137 square miles. Their population,
respectively, being nearly 332,000, 252,000, and
81,000.
To the Geologist, the most interesting feature of modern
discovery in a country long famous for its mineral wealth,
is the wide dissemination of gold in the quartz veins of
the metamorphic rocks, which occur on the Atlantic
shore of Nova Scotia, stretching from Cape Sable to the
Gut of Canseau, and extending to a great distance across
the province. Its first discovery is currently supposed to
have been made in 1861 in a brook near Tangier har-
bour, about sixty miles from Halifax, and to have been
brought about by a man, stopping to drink, perceiving a
particle of the precious metal shining amongst the pebbles.
This led to an extended research, soon rewarded by dis-
covery of the matrix, and general operations accompanied
by fresh discoveries in widely distant points, and thus,
perhaps, was fairly started gold mining in Nova Scotia.
I believe, however, that I am right in attributing the
honour of being the first gold finder in the province to
my friend and quondam companion in the woods, Captain
C. L’Estrange of the Royal Artillery, and understand
that his claim to priority in this matter has been recently
fully recognised by the Provincial Government ; it being
satisfactorily shown that he found and brought in
specimens of gold in quartz from surface rocks, when
moose-hunting in the eastern districts, some time before
the discoveries at Tangier. The Oven’s Head diggings,
near Lunenburg, were discovered during the summer of
the same year; and the sea-beach below the cliffs at this
locality afforded for a short time a golden harvest by
washing the sand and pounded shale which had been
8 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
silted into the fissures of the rocks below high water
mark. The gold thus obtained had of course come from
the cliff detritus—the result of the incessant dash of
Atlantic waves over a long period of time—and was soon
exhausted: the claims on the cliff, however have proved
valuable. Then followed the discovery of the highly-
prolific barrel-shaped quartz at Allen’s farm, afterwards
known as the Waverley diggings, of the Indian Harbour
and Wine Harbour gold-fields on the Eastern Coast
beyond Tangier, and of others to the westward, at Gold
River and La Have. Farther back from the coast, and
towards the edge of the slate formation, the precious —
metal has been found at Mount Uniacke, and in the most
northern extension of the granitic metamorphic strata
_ towards the Bay of Fundy, at a place called Little
Chester.
_ Though no small excitement naturally attended the
simultaneous and hitherto unexpected discovery of such
extensive gold areas, the development of the Nova-
Scotian gold mines has been conducted with astonishing
decorum and order: the robberies and bloodshed incident
on such a pursuit in wilder parts of America, or at the —
Antipodes, have been here totally unknown. The indi-
viduals who prospected and took up claims, soon finding
the difficulty of remunerating themselves by their own
unaided labour, disposed of them for often very con-
siderable sums to the companies of Nova-Scotians,
Germans, and Americans, which had been formed to
work the business methodically. Though constantly seen
glistening as specks in the quartz, close to the surface,
the metal was seldom disclosed in nuggets of great value,
and the operation of crushing alone (extracting the gold
THE MARITIME PROVINCES. 9
by amalgamation with quicksilver) proved remunerative
in the long run and when carried out extensively.
At the commencement of this important era in the
economical history of Nova Scotia, the interest attached
to the pursuit of gold-digging may be well imagined.
Farm labourers, and farmers themselves, deserted their
summer’s occupation and hastened to the localities pro-
claimed as gold-fields. Shanties, camps, and stores
appeared amongst the rough rocks which strewed the
wilderness in the depths of the forest. At Tangier, when
I visited it (the same summer in which gold was first
discovered there), a street had risen, with some three |
hundred inhabitants, composed of rude frame houses,
bark camps, and tents. Flags flaunted over the stores
and groggeries, and the characteristic American “store ”
displayed its motley merchandise as in the settlements.
Anything could be here purchased, from a pickaxe to a
erinoline. A similar scene was shortly afterwards pre-
sented at the Oven’s Head; whilst at the Waverley
diggings, only ten miles distant from the capital of Nova
Scotia, a perfect town has sprung up. This latter locality
is famous for the singular formation of its gold-bearing
quartz lodes, termed “The Barrels.” These barrels were
discovered on the hill-side at a small distance below the
surface, and consisted of long trunk-like shafts of quartz
enclosed in quartzite. They were arranged in parallel
lines, and looked very like the tops of drains exposed for
repair. At first they were found to be exceedingly rich
in gold, some really fine nuggets having been displayed ;
but subsequent research has proved them a failure, and
the barrel formation has been abandoned for quartz
occurring in veins of ordinary position, A German com-
10 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
pany established here has succeeded in obtaining large
profits, working the quartz veins by shafts sunk to a great
depth. Their crushing mill, when I visited it, contained
sixteen ponderous “stampers” moved by water power.
Every three or four weeks an ingot was forwarded by
them to Halifax, weighing four or five hundred ounces.
Some beautiful specimens of gold in quartz of the
purest white, from this locality, were exhibited by
the Commissioners at the last great International Exhi-
bition.
Even at the present time it is impossible to form any
just estimation of the value of the Nova-Scotian gold-
fields. Scientific men have given it as their opinion that
the main seat of the treasure has not yet been touched,
and that the present workings are but surface pickings.
_ Then, again, we may refer to the immense extent of the
Lower Silurian rocks on the Atlantic coast. At one end
of the province, stretching back for some fifty miles, the
whole area of the formation has been stated to comprise
‘about 7000 square miles. ‘The wide dispersion over this
tract of casual gold discoveries and of the centres of
actual operations naturally lead to the belief that gold —
mining is still in its infancy in Nova Scotia.
The yield of gold from the quartz veins is exceedingly
variable : some will scarcely produce half an ounce, others
as much as eight ounces to the ton. I have seen a large
quartz pebble picked up on the road side between Halifax
and the Waverley diggings, rather larger than a man’s
head, which was spangled and streaked with gold in every
direction, estimated in value at nearly one hundred
pounds. It is curious to reflect for how many years that
valuable stone had been unwittingly passed by by the
THE MARITIME PROVINCES. 11
needy settler returning from market to his distant farm
on the Eastern Road. Now frequent roadside chippings
strewed about attest the curiosity of the modern traveller
through the gold districts.
Of much greater importance, however, to these colonics
than the recently discovered gold-fields are their bound-
less resources as coal-producing countries, paralysed
though their works may be at present by the pertinacious
refusal on the part of the United States to renew the
Reciprocity Treaty. To this temporary prostration an
end must soon be put by the opening up of intercolonial
commerce, to be brought about by the speedy completion
of an uninterrupted railway communication between the
Canadas and the Lower Provinces, and well-established
commercial relations throughout the whole of the New
Dominion.
The coal-fields of Acadie are numerous and of large
area, the carboniferous system extending throughout the
province of Nova Scotia, including Cape Breton, bounding
the metamorphic belt of the Atlantic coast, and passing
through the isthmus, which joins the two provinces, into
New Brunswick, where it attains its broadest development.
In the latter province, however, the actual coal seams are
unimportant ; and it is in certain localities in Nova
Scotia and Cape Breton where the magnificent collieries
of British North America are found, and from which it
has been. said the whole steam navy of Great Britain
might be supplied for centuries to come, as well as the
demands of the neighbouring colonies. It is impossible
to over-estimate the political importance accruing from
so vast a transatlantic storehouse of this precious mineral
both to England and the colonists themselves, whilst
12 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
singularly enough, on the Pacific side of the continent,
and in British possession, occur the prolific coal-fields of
Vancouver's Island. “That the eastern and western
portals of British America,” says Mr. R. G. Haliburton,*
“should be so favoured by nature, augurs well for the
New Dominion, which, possessing a vast tract of magni-
ficent agricultural country between these extreme limits,
only requires an energetic, self-reliant people, worthy of
such a home, to raise it to a high position amongst
nations.”
The grand coal column from the main seam of the
Albion mines at Pictou, exhibited at the last Great Exhi-_
bition in London, will be long remembered. ‘This seam.
is 37 feet in vertical thickness. With iron of excellent
- quality found abundantly and in the neighbourhood of
her great coal-fields, and fresh discoveries of various other
minerals of economic value being constantly made, Acadie
has all the elements wherewith to forge for herself the
armour-plated bulwark of great commercial prosperity.
And yet the shrewd capitalists of the Great Republic are
rapidly becoming possessed of the mineral wealth of the
country, almost unchallenged by provincial rivalry.
Considerably removed from the mainland, with a coast
line for some distance conforming to the direction of the
Gulf Stream, the northern edge of which closely approaches
its shores, the climate of Nova Scotia is necessarily most
uncertain; south-westerly winds are continually struggling
for mastery with the cold blasts which blow over the
continent from the north-west. In comparatively fine
weather in summer, the sea fog, which marks the mingling
* On the Coal Trade of the New Dominion, by R. G. Haliburton, F.S.A.,
F.R.S.N.A. : from “ Proceedings of the N.S. Institute of Nat. Science.”
THE MARITIME PROVINCES. 13
of the warm waters of the great Atlantic current with
the colder stream which courses down the eastern coast
of Newfoundland from the Polar regions, carrying with
it troops of icebergs, is almost always hovering off the
land, from which it is barely repelled by the gentle west
winds from the continent. The funnel-shaped Bay of
Fundy, and the bight in the Nova-Scotian coast which
merges into the long harbour of Halifax are the strong-
holds of this obnoxious pall of vapour. A few miles
inland the west wind generally prevails; indeed it is
often astonishing with what suddenness one emerges
from the fog on leaving the coast. A point or two of
change in the direction of the wind makes all the diffe-
rence. I have often made the voyage from Halifax to
Cape Race—the exact course of the northern fog line—
alternating rapidly between sunshine and dismal and
dangerous obscurity as the wind veered in the least
degree on either side of our course. Past this, the south-
easternmost point of Newfoundland, the fog holds on its
way till the great banks are cleared: it seldom works up
the coast to the northward, and is of rare occurrence at
St. John’s. St. John, New Brunswick, seems to be espe-
cially visited, though it has no footing in the interior of
that province.
Insidiously drawing around the mariner in these
waters in calm summer weather, the fog of the Gulf
Stream is always thickest at this season, although the
stratum of vapour scarcely reaches over the vessel’s tops,
the moon or stars being generally visible from the deck
at night. Fog trumpets or lights are to a certain extent
useful precautions, yet even the strictest watch from the
bowsprit is often insufficient to avert collision.
14 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
In winter time the propinquity of the Gulf Stream pro-
duces frequent moderations of temperature. Deep falls
of snow are perpetually melting under its warm currents
of air when borne inland, though such phases are quickly
succeeded by a reassertion of true North American cold,
with a return of the north-west wind, arresting the thaw,
and encasing the steaming snow with a film of glace ice.
During the spring months again, the Arctic currents,
accompanied by easterly or north-easterly winds, exercise
a chilling influence on the climate of the Atlantic coast
of the Lower Provinces. Immense areas of field ice float
past the Nova-Scotian shores from the mouth of the St.
Lawrence and harbours of the Gulf, often working round
into Halifax harbour and obstructing navigation, whilst
vegetation is thereby greatly retarded.
The mirage observed on approaching these floating ice
plains at sea is very striking—mountains appear to grow
out of them, with waterfalls ; towns, castles, and spires,
ever fleeting and varying in form. I have observed very
similar effects produced in summer, off the coast, on a
clear day, on a distant wall of sea fog, by evaporation.
As might be reasonably expected, the commingling of —
two great currents emanating from such far distant
sources as do the Gulf and the Polar streams, must be
productive at their point of junction, of phenomena inte-
resting to the ichthyologist. To the student of this
branch of natural history Halifax, is an excellent position
for observation, and from the recorded memoranda of
Mr. J. M. Jones we find many curious meetings of
northern and southern types in the same waters—for
instance that of the albicore and the Greenland shark
(Thynnus vulgaris and Scymnus borealis)—the former a
THE MARITIME PROVINCES. 15
well-known inhabitant of the tropics, the latter a true
boreal form. ‘Tropical forms of fish are of frequent oc-
currence in the Halifax market, and shoals of flying
fish have been observed by Admiral Sir Alexander Milne
in the Gulf Stream as far as 37 deg. 50 min. N.
A sketch, however slight, of the physical geography of
the Acadian Provinces would be incomplete were notice
to be omitted of the famous Bay of Fundy tide—a page
of modern geological history much to be studied in eluci-
dation of phenomena of ages long past, as pointed out
by Dr. Dawson, the well-known author of a valuable
scientific work termed “ Acadian Geology.’ On the
Atlantic seaboard at Halifax the rise of the spring tide
is about six feet, a height attained at high water with
but little variation throughout this coast. After passing
Cape Sable, the southernmost extremity of the province,
the portals of the bay may be said to be gained; and
here an appreciable rise occurs in the tidal wave of
about three feet. Farther round, at Yarmouth, sixteen
feet is the height at high water in spring tides, reaching
to twenty-seven feet at Digby Gut, forty-three feet at
Parsboro, and, at the mouth of the Shubenacadie River
at the head of Cobequid Bay, occasionally attaining the
extraordinary elevation of seventy feet above low water
mark. In this, as well as in several other rivers dis-
charging into the bay, the tide rushes up the channel for
a considerable distance into the interior with an at-
tendant phenomenon termed “the Bore,’”—an advanced
wave or wall of surging waters, some four feet above the
level of the descending fresh water stream. The spec-
tator, standing on the river bank, presently sees a proces-
sion of barges, boats, or Indian canoes, taking advantage
16 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
of this natural “ Express” from the ocean, whirling past
him at some seven or eight miles per hour, whilst the
long shelving banks of red mud are quickly hidden
by the eager impulsive current. Out, in the open bay,
the eddying “rips” over the flats as the rismg waters
cover them, or the tumultuous seas which rise where
the great tide is restrained by jutting headlands afford
still greater spectacles. With a strong wind blowing
in an opposite direction to the tide, the navigation of
the Bay of Fundy is perilous on a dark night, and
many are the victims engulfed with their little fish-
ing smacks in its treacherous and ever-shifting shoals.
It wears a beautiful aspect, however, in fine summer
weather—a soft chalky hue quite different from the
stern blue of the sea on the Atlantic shores, and some-
_ what approaching the summer tints of the Channel on
the coasts of England. The surrounding scenery too is
beautiful ; and the twelve hours’ steam voyage from —
Windsor, Nova Scotia, to St. John, the capital of New
Brunswick, past the picturesque headlands of Blomidon,
Cape Split, and Parsboro, in fine weather most enjoyable.
The red mud, or, rather, exceedingly fine sand, carried
by the surging waters, is deposited at high tide on the
flats and over the land overflown at the edges of the bay,
and thus have been produced the extensive salt marsh
lands which constitute the wealth of the dwellers by the
bay shores—soils which, never receiving the artificial
stimulus of manure, show no signs of exhaustion though
a century may have elapsed since their utilisation, The
occurrence of submerged forests, the stumps of which
still stand: in setu, observed by Dr. Dawson, and indicat-
ing a great subsidence of the land in modern times, and
a ee ee 4
THE MARITIME PROVINCES. ET
the frequent footprints of birds and animals on the suc-
cessive depositions of mud, dried by the sun, and easily
detached with the layers on which they were stamped,
are interesting features in connection with the geology of
this district.
The Fauna and Flora of the three provinces: constitut-
ing Acadia (the name, though, is now seldom applied
otherwise than poetically) are almost identical with those
displayed on the neighbouring portions of the continent,
in New England, and the Canadas, though of course, and
as might be expected, a few species swell the lists of
either kingdom further inland and on receding from the
ocean. ‘There are one or two noticeable differences
between the provinces themselves. Thus, for instance,
whilst the white cedar (Thuya occidentalis) is one of the
most common of the New Brunswick conifers, frequent
up to its junction with Nova Scotia, there are but one or
two isolated patches of this tree existing, or ever known
to exist, in the latter province, and these not found near
the isthmus, but on the shores of the Bay of Fundy,
near Granville. Again, not a porcupine exists on the
island:of Cape Breton, though abundant in Nova Scotia
up to the strait of Canseau, in places scarcely half a mile
broad. The migratory wild pigeon, formerly equally
abundant in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, has now
entirely deserted the latter, though still numerous in
summer in the former province.
The Canadian deer (Cervus virginianus), common in
New Brunswick, has never crossed the isthmus; and the
wolf (Canis occidentalis), though now and then entering
Nova Scotia, apparently cannot make up its mind to
stay, though there is an amplitude of wilderness country :
3 ,
18 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
seen at long intervals of time in different parts of the
province, and almost simultaneously, it rapidly scours
over the country, and retires to the continent.
There are no deer now indigenous to Prince Edward's
Island, though the cariboo was formerly found there in
abundance. The Morse or Walrus, once numerous on
the coasts, seems to have entirely disappeared even
from the most northern parts of the Gulf: it was once
common in the St. Lawrence as far up as the Saguenay.
Another disappearance from the coast of Nova Scotia
is that of the Snow Goose (Anser hyperboreus), now
seldom seen south of the St. Lawrence.
Of the former presence of the Great Auk (Alca im-
pennis) in the neighbourhood of the Gulf, it is to be
regretted that there are no living witnesses, or even
_existing traditions. That it was once a resident on the
shores of Newfoundland is shown by the specimens
found in guano on the Funk Islands entombed under
ice. As has probably happened in the case of this bird,
it is to be feared that the retirement of other members of
the true Boreal Fauna within more Arctic limits forebodes
a gradual, though often inexplicable, progress towards —
extinction. 3
The newly-arrived emigrant or observant visitor can-
not fail to be impressed with the similarity of forms in
both the animal and the vegetable kingdoms to those
of western Europe, here presented. To the Englishman
unaccustomed to northern fir forests and their accom-
panying flora, the woods are naturally the strangest
feature in the country—the density of the stems in the
jagged forest lines which bound the settlements, the long
parallel-sided openings, cut out by the axe, which mark
THE MARITIME PROVINCES. 19
the new clearings, where crops are growing rankly amongst
the stumps, roots, and rock boulders which still strew
the ground, and the wild tanglement of bushes and briars
on half-reclaimed ground—but in the fields and uplands
of a thoroughly cleared district he is scarcely reminded
of a difference in the scene from that to which he has
been accustomed. In the pastures he sees English
grasses, with the buttercup, the ox-eye, and the dandelion ;
the thistle and many a well known weed are recognised
growing by the meadow-side, with the wild rose and the
blackberry, as in English hedge-rows. Though the house-
sparrow and the robin are missed, and he is surprised to
find the latter name applied everywhere to the numerous
red-breasted thrushes which hop so fearlessly about the
pastures, he finds much to remind him of bird life at
home. Swallows and martins are as numerous, indeed
more so; the tit-mouse, the wren, and the gold-crest are
found to be: almost identical with those of the old
country, the former being closely analogous in every
respect to the small blue tit, and many of the warblers
and flycatchers have much in common with their Trans-
atlantic representatives. The rook is not here, but its place
is taken by flocks of the common American crow, often
as gregarious in its habits as the former, whilst the
various birds of prey present most striking similarities
of plumage when compared with those of Europe; and
the appropriateness of calling the American species the
same common names as are applied to the goshawk,
sparrowhawk, or osprey, is at once admitted. The wasp,
the bee, and the house-fly, present no appreciable diffe-
rences, nor can the visitor detect even a shade of dis-
tinction in many of the butterflies.
20 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE,
The seafaring man arriving from Europe will find even
less of divergence amongst the finny tribes and the sea-
fowl on these coasts, and indeed will not pretend to assert
a difference in most cases.
The very interesting question thus readily suggests.
itself to the naturalist—-in what light are many analogous
forms in Western Europe and Atlantic North America to
be regarded in reference to each other? The identity of
the species which almost continuously range the cireum-
arctic zoological province is perfectly well established in
such instances as those of the arctic fox, the white bear, and
of many of the Cetaceze and Phocidze amongst mammals;
of the eiders, common and king, the pintail and others of
the Anatidee, and of the sturgeon, capelin, herring, and
probably the sea-salmon amongst fishes. Nor could the
_ fact be reasonably doubted in the case of creatures which
are permanent residents of a limited cireumpolar zone, or
even in that of the migratory species which affect polar
regions for a season, and thence regularly range south-
wards over the diverging continents. The question, how-
ever, which is offered for solution is respecting those
analogous forms which have apparently permanent habi-—
tats in the Old and New Worlds, and have always
remained (as far as is known) geographically isolated.
With regard to the arctic deer the author's considerations
will be found given at some length, but there are many
other analogies in the fauna and flora of the two hemi-
spheres, which, on comparison, naturally lead to a dis-
cussion on the subject of local variation, and as to how
far the system of classification is to be thus modified.
Buffon’s idea that many of the animals of the New
World were the descendants of Old World stock would
THE MARITIME PROVINCES. 21
seem not only to be set aside but reversed in argument
by a new and growing belief that transmission of species
has extensively occurred from America to Europe and
Asia. “America,” says Hugh Miller, “though emphati-
_cally the New World in relation to its discovery by
~ civilized man, is, at least in these regions, an old world
in relation to geological type, and it is the so-called old
world that is in reality the new one. Sir Charles Lyell,
in the “ Antiquity of Man,” states that “ Professors
Unger and Heer have advanced, on botanical grounds
the former existence of an Atlantic continent, during
some part of the tertiary period, as affording the only
plausible explanation that can be imagined of the
analogy between the miocene flora of Central Europe and
the existing flora of Eastern America. Other naturalists,
again, have supposed this to have been effected through
an overland communication existing between America
and Eastern Asia in the direction of the Aleutian
Islands. Sir George Simpson has stated that almost
direct proof exists of the American ongin of the
Tchuktehi of Siberia; whilst it would appear that
primitive customs and traditions im many parts of the
globe are being traced to aboriginal man existing in
America.
Professor Lawson, of Dalhousie College, Halifax, N.S.,
in referring to the recent and well-established discovery
of heather (Calluna vulgaris) as indigenous to the
Acadian provinces, observes, “The occurrence. of this
common European plant in such small quantities in
isolated localities on the American continent is very in-
structive, and obviously points to a period when the heath
was a widely-spread social plant in North America, as it is
22 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
still in Europe where oft-recurring fires are yearly lessen-
ing its range. In Calluna we have probably an example
of a species on the verge of extinction as an American
species, while maintaining a vigorous and abundant
growth in Europe. If so, may not Europe be indebted
to America for Calluna, and not America to Europe ?”
With such scanty data, however, valuable indeed as
they are in building up theories, but few and uncertain
steps can be made towards solving so important a ques-
tion. An irresistible conclusion is however forced on the
mind of the naturalist that in many of the analogies he
meets with in animal or vegetable life in this portion of
the New World it is not fair to call them even types of
those of the Old; they are analogous species.
Se ee ee
CHAPTER II.
THE FORESTS OF ACADIE.
A GLANCE at a physical map of the country will serve
to show the relative position of the main bodies of the
North American forest, the division of the woods where
the wedge-shaped north-western corner of the plains comes
in, and their well-defined limit on the edge of the barren
grounds, coincident with the line of perpetual ground
frost.
Characterised by a predominance of coniferous trees,
the great belt of forest country which constitutes the
hunting grounds of the Hudson’s Bay Company, has its
nearest approach to the Arctic Ocean in the Mackenzie
Valley, becoming ever more and more stunted and
monotonous until it merges at length into the barren
waste.
In its southern extension, on meeting the northern
extremity of the prairies, it branches into two streams—
the one directed along the Pacific coast line and its great
mountain chain; the other crossing the continent
diagonally between the boundaries of the plains and
Hudson’s Bay towards the Atlantic. On this course
the forest soon receives important accessions of new
forms of trees, gradually introduced on approaching the.
lake district, and loses much of its sterner character.
24 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
The oak, beech, and maple groves of the Canadas are
equally characteristic of the forest scenery of these
regions, with the white pine or the hemlock spruce.
On approaching the Atlantic seaboard, the forest is
again somewhat impoverished by the absence of those —
forms which seem to require an inland climate. In the
forests of Acadie many Canadian trees found farther
westward in the same latitude are wanting, or of so rare
occurrence as to exercise no influence on the general
features of the country, such as the hickory and the
butternut. “In Nova Scotia,’ says Professor Lawson,
“the preponderance of northern species is much greater
than in corresponding latitudes in Canada, and many of
our common plants are in Western Canada either entirely
‘ northern, or strictly confined to the great swamps, whose
cool waters and dense shade form a shelter for northern:
species.”
Though certain soils and physical conformations of the
country occasionally favour exclusive growths of either,
the woods of the Lower Provinces display a pleasing —
mixture of what are locally termed hard and soft wood
trees—in other words, of deciduous and evergreen. vege-
tation. Broken only by clearings and settlements in the
lines of alluvial valleys, roads, or important fishing or
mining stations, the forest still obtains over large sections
of the country, notwithstanding continued and often
wanton mutilation by the axe, and the immense area
annually devastated by fire. The fierce energy of
American vegetation, if allowed, quickly fills up gaps,
and the burnt, blackened waste is soon re-clothed with
the verdure of dense copses of birch and aspen.
The true character of the American forest is not to
oe ee ee ee eee
ht ee ee
7. = —a t= - =!
— — ————e - — —
or a eee ae
THE FORESTS OF ACADIE. 25
be studied from the road-side or along the edges of
the cleared lands. ‘To read its mysteries aright, we must
plunge into its depths and live under its shelter through
all the phases of the seasons, leaving far behind the sound
of the settler’s axe and the tinkling of his cattle-bells.
The strange feelings of pleasure attached to a life
-in the majestic solitudes of the pine forests of North
America cannot be attained by a merely marginal
acquaintance.
On entering the woods, the first feature which natu-
rally strikes us is the continual occurrence of dense copses
of young trees, where a partial clearing has afforded a
chance to the profusely sown germs to spring up and
perpetuate the ascendancy of vegetation, though of
course, in the struggle for existence, but few of these
would live to assert themselves as forest trees. As we
advance we perceive a taller and straighter growth, and
observe that many species, which in more civilised
districts are mere ornamental shrubs, throwing out their
feathery branches close to the ground, now assume the
character of forest trees with clean straight stems,
though somewhat slender withal, engendering the belief
that, left by themselves in the dpen, they would offer but
a short resistance to wintry gales. The foliage predomi-
nates at the tree top; the stems: (especially of the
spruces) throw out a profusion of spikes and dead
branchlets from the base upwards. Unhealthy situa-
tions, such as cold swamps, are marked by the utmost
confusion. Hverywhere, and at every variety of angle,
trees lean and creak against their comrades, drawing a
few more years of existence through their support. The
foot is being perpetually lifted to stride over dead stems,
26 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
sometimes so intricately interwoven that the traveller
becomes fairly pounded for the nonce.
This tangled appearance, however, is an attribute of
the spruce woods ; there is a much more orderly arrange-
ment under the hemlocks. These grand old trees seem
to bury their dead decently, and long hillocks in the
mossy carpet alone mark their ancestors’ graves, which
are generally further adorned by the evergreen tresses
of the creeping partridge-berry, or the still more delicate
festoons of the capillaire.
The busy occupation of all available space in the
American forest by a great variety of shrubs and herba-
ceous plants, constitutes one of its principal charms—the
multitudes of blossoms and delicate verdure arising from
the sea of moss to greet our eyes in spring, little maple
or birch seedlings starting up from prostrate trunks or
crannies of rock boulders, with wood violets, and a host
of the spring flora. The latter, otherwise rough and
shapeless objects, are thus invested with a most pleasing
appearance—transformed into the natural flower vases of
the woods. The abundance of the fern tribe, again, lends
much grace to the woodland scenery. In the swamp the
cinnamon fern, O. cinnamomea, with O. interrupta, attain
a luxuriant growth; and the forest brook is often almost
concealed by rank’ bushes of royal fern (O. regalis).
Rocks in woods are always topped with polypodium,
whilst the delicate fronds of the oak fern hang from their
sides. ilix feemina and F. mas are common every-
where, and, with many others of the list, present appa-
rently inappreciable differences to their Huropean repre-
sentatives.
There is a beauty peculiar to this interesting order
Shes
THE FORESTS OF ACADIE. 27
especially pleasing to the eye when studying details of
a landscape in which the various forms of vegetation
form the leading features. The luxuriant mosses and
ereat lichens which cover or cling to everything in the
forest act a similar part. Even the dismal black swamps
are somewhat enlivened by the long beards of the Usnea;
fallen trees are often made quite brilliant by a profusion
of scarlet cups of Cladonia gracilis.
But now let us examine further into the specific cha-
racter of at least some of the individuals of which the
forest is composed. As we wander on we chance, perhaps,
to stumble upon what is called, in woodsman’s parlance,
a “blazed line”—a broad chip has been cut from the side
of a tree, and the white surface of the inner wood at once
catches the eye of the watchful traveller; a few paces
farther on some saplings have been cut, and, keeping the
direction, we perceive in the distance another blazed mark
on atrunk. It may be a path leading from the settle-
ment to some distant woodland meadow of wild grass, or
a line marking granted property, or it may lead to a lot
of timber trees marked for the destructive axe of the lum-
berer—perhaps a grove of White Pine. This is the great
object of the lumberer’s search. Ascending a tree from
which an extensive view of the wild country is commanded,
he marks the tall overbearing summits of some distant pine
grove (for this tree is singularly gregarious, and is gene-
rally found growing in family groups), and having taken
its bearings with a compass, descends, and with his com-
rades proceeds on his errand of destruction. In the
neighbourhood of the coast, or on barren soil, the pine is
a stunted bushy tree, its branches feathering nearly to the
sround ; but the pine of the forest ascends as a straight
28 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
tower to the height of some 120 feet, two or three mas-
sive branches being thrown out in twisted and fantastic
attitudes. As if aware of its proud position as monarch
of the forest, it is often found on the summit of a preci-
pice ; and these conspicuous positions, which it seems to
prefer, have doomed this noble specimen of the cone-
bearing evergreens to ultimate extermination as certain
as that of the red man or the larger game of this conti-
nent. Some half-century since, the pine was found on
the margins of all the large lakes and streams, but of late
the axe and devastating fires have, as it were, driven the
tree far back into the remoter solitudes of the forest, and
long and expensive expeditions must be undertaken ére
the head-quarters of a gang of lumber-men can be fixed
upon for a winter employment. At the head waters of
- some insignificant brook, and in the neighbourhood of
good timber, these hardy sons of the forest fell the trees,
and cut and square them into logs, dragging them to the
edge of the stream, into whose swollen waters they are
rolled at the breaking up of winter and melting of the
snow, to find their way through almost endless difficulties
to the sea. That most useful animal in the woods, the
ox, accompanies the lumberers to their remote forest
camps, and drags the logs to the side of the stream. It
is really wonderful to watch these animals, well managed,
performing their laborious tasks in the forest: urged on
and directed solely by the encouraging voice of the team-
ster, the honest team drag the huge pine-log over the
rough inequalities of the ground, over rocks, and through
treacherous swamps and thickets, with almost unaccount-
able ease and safety, where the horse would at once be-
come confused, frightened, and injured, besides failing on
f
Wey
Tf
HL
iY, \ *
»
\})
qi
| °EAK SUN. S.
THE LUMBERER'S CAMP IN WINTER.
THE FORESTS OF ACADIE. 29
the score of comparative streneth. Slowly but surely
the ox performs incredible feats of draught in the woods,
and asks for no more care than the shelter of a rough
shed near the lumberers’ camp, with a store of coarse wild
hay, and a drink at the neighbouring brook.
This aristocrat of the forest, Pinus strobus, refuses to
grow in the black swamp or open bog, which it leaves to
poverty-stricken spruces and larches, nor in its communi-
ties will it tolerate much undergrowth. Pine woods are
peculiarly open and easy to traverse. Bracken, and but
little else, grows beneath, and the foot treads noiselessly
on a soft slippery surface of fallen tassels. A peculiarly
soft subdued light pervades these groves—a ray here and
there falling on the white blossoms of the pigeon berry
(Cornus Canadensis) in summer, or, later, on its bright
scarlet clusters of berries, sets frequent sparkling gems in
our path. That beautiful forest music termed soughing
in Scotland, in reference to the sound of the wind
passing over the foliage of the Scotch fir, is heard to per-
fection amongst the American pines.
The white pine, according to Sir J. Richardson, ranges
as far to the northward as the south shore of Lake Wini-
peg. “ Even in its northern termination,” he says, “it is
still a stately tree.”
The Hemlock, or Hemlock Spruce (Abies Canadensis
of Michaux), is a common tree in the woodlands of
Acadie, affecting moist mossy slopes in the neighbour-
hood of lakes, though generally mixing with other ever-
greens in all situations. It is found, however, of largest
growth (80 feet), and growing in large groves, principally
in the former localities, where it vies with the white pine
in its solid proportions. The deeply grained columnar
30 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
trunk throws off its first branches some 50 feet above the
ground, and the light feathery foliage clings round the
summit of an old tree in dense masses, from which pro-
trude the bare twisted limbs which abruptly terminate
the column.
Perched high up in its branches may be often seen in
winter the sluggish porcupine, whose presence aloft is
first detected by the keen eye of the Indian through the
scratches made by its claws on the trunk in ascending its
favourite tree to feed on the bark and leaves of the
younger shoots.
Large groves of hemlock growing on woodland slopes
present a noble appearance; their tall columns never
bend before the gale. There is a general absence of
undergrowth, thus affording long vistas through the
shady grove of giants; and the softened light invests the
interior of these vast forest cathedrals with an air of
solemn mystery, whilst the even spread of their mossy
carpet affords appreciable relief to the footsore hunter.
The human voice sounds as if confined within spacious
and lofty halls.
Hawthorne, describing the wooded solitudes in which
he loved to wander, thus speaks of a grove of these
trees -—“ These ancient hemlocks are rich in many things
beside birds. Indeed, their wealth in this respect is
owing mainly, no doubt, to their rank vegetable growths,
their fruitful swamps, and their dark, sheltered retreats.
“Their history is of an heroic cast. Ravished and
torn by the tanner in his thirst for bark, preyed upon by
the lumberman, assaulted and beaten back by the settler,
still their spirit has never been broken, their energies
never paralysed. Not many years ago a public highway
ee eee
THE FORESTS OF ACADIE. 31
passed’ through them, but it was at no time a tolerable
road ; trees fell across it, mud and limbs choked it up,
till finally travellers took the hint and went around ; and
now, walking along its deserted course, I see only the
footprints of coons, foxes, and squirrels.
“Nature loves such woods, and places her own seal
upon them. Here she shows me what can be done with
ferns and mosses and lichens. ‘The soil is marrowy and
full of innumerable forests. Standing in these fragrant
aisles, I feel the strength of the vegetable kingdom and
am awed by the deep and inscrutable processes of life
going on so silently about me.
“No hostile forms with axe or spud now visit these
solitudes. The cows have half-hidden ways through
them, and know where the best browsing is to be had.
In spring the farmer repairs to their bordering of maples
to make sugar; in July and August women and boys
from all the country about penetrate the old Barkpeeling
for raspberries and blackberries; and I know a youth
who wonderingly follows their languid stream casting for
trout.
“Tn like spirit, alert and buoyant, on this bright June
morning go | also to reap my harvest,—pursuing a sweet
more delectable than sugar, fruit more savoury than ber-
ries, and game for another palate than that tickled by
trout.” *
Hemlock bark, possessing highly astringent properties,
is much used in America for tanning purposes, almost
* There is no mistaking the authorship of this passage from the note-
books of Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is not embodied in the recently
published English edition of his notes; I found it in a contribution of his
to an American periodical many years since, and preserved it as a gem.
32 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
entirely superseding that of the oak. Its surface is very —
rough with deep grooves between the scales. Of a light
pearly gray outside, it shows a madder brown tint when
chipped. The sojourner in the woods seeks the dry and
easily detached bark which clings to an old dead hem-
lock as a great auxiliary to his stock of fuel for the camp
fire ; it burns readily and long, emitting an intense heat,
and so fond are the old Indians of sitting round a small
conical pile of the ignited bark in their wigwams, that
it bears in their language the sobriquet of “the old
Grannie.”
The hemlock, as a shrub, is perhaps the most orna-
mental of all the North American evergreens. It has
none of that tight, stiff, old-fashioned appearance so gene-
rally seen in other spruces: the graceful foliage droops —
loosely and irregularly, hiding the stem, and, when each
spray is tipped with the new season’s shoot of the
brightest sea-green imaginable, the appearance is very
beautiful. The young cones are likewise of a delicate |
oreen.
This tree has a wide range in the coniferous wood-
lands of North America, extending from the Hudson’s
Bay territory to the mountains of Georgia. The great
southerly extension of the northern forms of trees on the
south-east coast, is due to the direction of the Allegha-
nian range, which, commencing in our own province of
vegetation, carries its flora as far south as 35 degrees
north latitude, elevation affording the same conditions of
growth as distance from the equator.
It would appear that this giant spruce has no analo-
gous form in the Old World as have others of the genus
Abies found in the New. All the genera of conifers,
|
THE FORESTS OF ACADIE. 33
however, here contain a larger number of trees, which,
though they are exceedingly similar in general appear-
ance, are specifically distinct from their European con-
geners.
Under the Arctic circle, as pointed out by Sir J.
Richardson, and beyond the limits of tree growth, but
little appreciable difference exists in circumpolar vegeta-
tion, and so we recognise in the luxuriant cryptogamous |
flora of the forests we are describing most of the mosses
and lichens found across the Atlantic, which here attain
such a noticeable development. As with nobler forms,
America, however, adds many new species to the
list. |
The Black Spruce is one of the most conspicuous and
characteristic forest trees of North-Eastern America,
forming a large portion of the coniferous forest growth,
and found in almost every variety of circumstance.
Sometimes it appears in mixed woods, of beautiful
growth and of great height, its numerous branches
drooping in graceful curves from the apex towards
the ground, which they sweep to a distance of twenty
to thirty feet from the stem, whilst the summit ter-
minates in a dense arrow head, on the short sprays
of which are crowded heavy masses of cones. At
others, it is found almost the sole growth, covering
large tracts of country, the trees standing thick, with
straight clean stems and but little foliage except
at the summit. Then there is the black spruce swamp,
where the tree shows by its contortions, its unhealthy
foliage, and its stem and limbs shaggy with usnea,
the hardships of its existence. Again on the open
bog grows the black spruce, scarcely higher than a cab-
D
34 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
bage sprout *—the light olive-green foliage living on
the compressed summit only, whilst the grey dead twigs
below are crowded with pendulous moss ; yet even here,
amidst the cold sphagnum, Indian cups, and cotton grass,
the tree lives to an age which would have given it a
proud position in the dry forest. Lastly, in the fissure of
a granite boulder may be seen its hardy seedling ; and
the little plant has a far better chance of becoming a tree
than its brethren in the swamp; for, one day, as frost and
increasing soil open the fissure, its roots will creep out and
fasten in the earth beneath.
In unhealthy situations a singular appearance is fre-
quently assumed by this tree. Stunted, of course, it
throws out its arms in the most tortuous shapes, sud-
denly terminating in a dense mass of innumerable
branchlets of a rounded contour like a beehive, display-
ing short, thick, light green foliage. The summit of —
the tree generally terminates in another bunch. The
stem and arms are profusely covered with lichens and
usnea. As a valuable timber tree the black spruce ranks
next to the pine, attaining a height of seventy to a hun-
dred feet. Being strong and elastic, it forms excellent:
material for spars and masts, and is converted into all
descriptions of sawed lumber—deals, boards, and scant-
lings. From its young sprays is prepared the decoction,
* Indeed these miniature trees in bogs where the sphagnum perpetually
bathes their roots with chilling moisture, have a very similar appearance to
Brussels sprouts on a large scale. The water held in the moss is always
cold: on May 5th, 1866, the tussacs of sphagnum were frozen solidly
within two or three inches of the surface. The centre of these bogs, often
called cariboo bogs by reason of this deer frequenting them in search of
the lichen, Cladonia rangiferinus, is generally quite bare of spruce clumps,
which fringe the edge of the surrounding forest, the trees increasing in
height as they recede from the open bog.
EEE OE oO
THE FORESTS OF ACADIE. 35
fermented with molasses, the celebrated spruce beer of the
American settler, a cask of which every good farmer’s wife
keeps in the hot, thirsty days of haymaking. To the
Indian, the roots of this tree, which shoot out to a great
distance immediately under the moss, are his rope, string
and thread. With them he ties his bundle, fastens the
birch-bark coverings to the poles of his wigwam, or sews -
the broad sheets of the same material over the ashen ribs
of his canoe.
For ornamental purposes in the open and cultivated
glebe the black spruce is very appropriate. The nume-
rous and gracefully curved branches, the regular and
acute cone shape of the mass, its clear purplish-grey
stem, and the beautiful bloom with which its abundant
cones are tinged in June, all enhance the picturesqueness
of a tree which is long-lived, and, moreover, never out-
grows its ornamental appearance, unless confined in
dense woodland swamps.
The bark of the black spruce is scaly, of various shades
of purplish-grey, sometimes approaching to a reddish hue,
hence, doubtless, suggesting a variety under the name of
red spruce, which is in reality a form depending on situa-
tion. In the latter, the foliage being frequently of a
lighter tinge of green, strengthens the supposition. No
specific differences have, however, been detected between
the trees.
The White Spruce or Sea Spruce of the Indians (Abies
alba, Mich.) is a conifer of an essentially boreal character.
Indeed in its extension into our own woodlands it ap-
pears to prefer bleak and exposed situations. It thrives
on our rugged Atlantic shores, and grows on exposed
and brine-washed sands where no other vegetation ap-
D2
36C: FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
pears, and hence is very useful, both as a shelter to the
Jand, and as holding it against the encroachment of the
sea. Its dark glaucous foliage assumes an almost impene-
trable aspect under these circumstances. I have seen
groves of white spruce on the shore, the foliage of which
was swept back over the land by prevailing gales from
‘the south-west, nearly parallel to the ground, and so
compressed and flattened at the top that a man could
walk on them as on a platform, whilst the shelter be-
neath was complete.
The Balsam Fir growing in these situations assumes a
very similar appearance in the density and colour of its
foliage and trunk to the white spruce, from which, how-.
ever, it can be quickly distinguished, on inspection, by
the pustules on the bark and its erect cones. In the
. forest the white spruce is rare in comparison with the
black, whose place it however altogether usurps on the
sand hills bordering the limit of vegetation in the far
north-west. The former tree prefers humid and rocky
woods.
Our Silver Fir (Abies balsamea, Marshall) is so like the
European picea that they would pass for the same
species were it not for the balsam pustules which charac-
terise the American tree. Both show the same silvery
lines under the leaf on each side of the mid-rib, which,
glistening in the sun as the branches are blown upwards
by the wind, give the tree its name. We find it in moist
woods—erowing occasionally in the provinces to a height
of sixty feet where it has plenty of room—a handsome,
dark-foliaged tree ; short-lived, however, and often falling
before a heavy gale, showing a rotten heart.
The silver fir is remarkable for the horizontal regularity
THE FORESTS OF ACADIE. 37
of its branches, and the general exact conical formation
of the whole tree. An irregularity in the growth of the
foliage, similar to that occurring in the black spruce, is
frequently to be found in the fir. A contorted branch,
generally half-way up the stem, terminates in a multi-
tude of interlaced sprays which are, every summer,
clothed with very delicate, flaccid, light-green leaves,
forming a beehive shape like that of the spruce. It may
be noticed, however, that whilst this bunch foliage is |
perennial in the case of the latter tree, that of the fir is
annually deciduous. Up to a certain age the silver fir in
the forest is a graceful shrub. Its flat delicate sprays
form the best bedding for the woodman’s couch; the
fragrance of its branches, when long cut or exposed to
the sun, is delicious, and their soft elasticity is most
orateful to the limbs of the wearied hunter on his return
to camp. ‘The bark of the larger trees, peeling readily
in summer, is used in sheets to cover the lumberer’s shanty,
which he now takes the opportunity to build in prospect
of the winter’s campaign.
The large, erect, sessile cones of the balsam fir are very
beautiful in the end of May, when they are of a light
sea-green colour, which, changing in June to pale laven-
der, in August assumes a dark slaty tint. They ripen in
the fall; and the scale being easily detached, the seeds
are soon scattered by the autumnal gales, leaving the
axis bare and persistent on the branch for many years.
In June each strobile is surmounted with a large mass of
balsam exudation.
A casual observer, on passing the edges of the forest,
cannot help remarking the brown appearance of the
spruce tops in some seasons when the cones are unusually
38 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
abundant. They are crowded together in bushels, and
often kill the upper part of the tree and its leading shoot,
after which a new leader appears to be elected amongst
the nearest tier of branchlets to continue the upward
erowth. From such a crop the Indians augur an un-
usually hard winter, through much the same process of
reasoning as that which the English countryman adopts
in prophesying a rigorous season from an abundant crop
of haws and other autumnal hedge fruits, and generally
with about the same chance of fulfilment.
No less majestic than the coniferee are many of the
species of deciduous trees, or “hard woods,” which, inter-
mingled with the former, impart such a pleasing aspect
to the otherwise gloomy fir forests of British North
America. Growing, as the firs, with tall straight stems,
. and struggling upwards for the influence of the sunlight
on their lofty foliage, the yellow and black birches aspire
to the greatest elevation, attaining a height of seventy or
eighty feet. Mixed with these are beeches and elms;
and in many districts the country is covered with an
almost exclusive growth of the useful rock or sugar-
maple.
In these “mixed woods,” as they are locally termed
(indicative, it is said, of a good soil), the prettiest con-
trast is afforded by the pure white stems of the canoe
birch (Betula papyracea) against the spruce boughs; and,
as these are generally open woods, the latter come sweep-
ing down to the ground. The young stems of the yellow
birch (B. excelsa) gleam like gilded rods in sunlight ;
their shining yellow bark looks as though it had been
fresh coated with varnish. |
These American birches are a beautiful family of trees,
THE FORESTS OF ACADIE, 39
particularly the canoe or paper birch, so called from the
readiness with which its folds of bark will separate from
the stem like thick sheets of paper. Smooth and round,
without a knot or branch for some forty feet from the
ground, is the tree which the Indian anxiously looks for;
it affords him the broad sheets of bark which cover his
wigwam and the frame of his canoe, and long journeys
does he often undertake in search of it. The bark is
thick as leather, and as pliable, and in the summer can
' readily be separated for any distance up the stem. From
it the Indians make the boxes and curiosities, by the sale
of which these poor creatures endeavour to earn a liveli-
hood. Their fanciful goods cannot, however, compete
with the useful productions of civilised labour, and are
only bought by the stranger and the charitable. The
white birch of the forest is as closely connected with the
interests of the Indian as the pine is with those of the
lumberer, and the former dreads the ultimate comparative
scarcity of the birch as the latter does that of the noble
timber-tree.
From the mountains of Virginia, on the south-east,
this important tree ranges northwardly in Atlantic
America far into the interior of Labrador, whilst in the
extreme north-west it ascends the valley of the Mackenzie
as far as 69 degrees N. lat. )
In travelling the forest in summer it is quite refreshing
to enter the bright sheen of a birch-covered hill, exchang-
ing the close resinous atmosphere of heated fir-woods for
its cool open vaults. The transition is often quite sudden
—the scene changing from gloom to brightness with a
magical effect. Such a contrast is presented to the
marked lights and shades of the pine forest! The silvery
40 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
stems with their light canopy of sunlit leaves, through
the breaks in which the blue sky shows quite dark as a
background, the innumerable lights falling on the light
ereen undergrowth of plants and shrubs beneath, and the
general absence of appreciable lines of shadow every-
where, stamp these hard-wood. hills with an almost fairy-
land appearance.
If at all near the borders of cinilianbiohi we soon strike
“hauling road,” leading from such localities into the
pereeignety track broad enough for a sled and pair of
oxen to pass over when the farmer comes in winter to
transport his firewood over the snow. And a goodly —
stock indeed he requires to battle with the cold of a
North American winter in the backwoods; logs, such as
- it would take two men to lift, of birch, beech or maple,
are piled on his ample hearth; the abundance of fuel
and the readiness with which he can bring it from the
neighbouring bush, is one of his greatest blessings. He
deserves a few comforts, for perhaps his lifetime, and that
of his father, has been spent in redeeming the few acres
round the dwelling from the fangs of gigantic stumps
and boulders of rock. A patch of potatoes, an acre or
so of buckwheat, and another of oats, and a few rough-
looking cattle, are his sources of wealth, or perhaps a
rough saw mill, constructed far up in the forest brook,
and the whirr of whose circular saw disturbs only the
wild animals of the surrounding woods.
- How vividly is recalled to my memory the delight
experienced on many occasions by our tired, belated
party, returning from a hunting camp through unknown
woods, on finding one of these logging roads, anticipating
in advance the kindly welcome of the invariably hospit-
splits Neth side Heer ai oe
THE FORESTS OF ACADIE. 41
able backwoods farmer, towards whose clearings it was
sure to trend. Perhaps for hours before we had almost
despaired of quitting the forest by nightfall. On sending
the Indians into tree-tops to reconnoitre, the disheartening
ery would be, “ Woods all round as far as we can see.”
Further on, perhaps, we should hear that there were
“Lakes all round!” Worse again, for then a wearisome
detour must be made. But at last some one finds signs
of chopping, then a stack of cord-wood, and then we
strike a regular blazed line. Now the spirits of every
one revive, and we soon emerge on the forest road with
its clean-cut track, corduroy platforms through swamps,
and rude log bridges over the brooks, which brings us
within the welcome sound of cattle bells, and at length
to the broad glare of the clearings.
Before leaving the woods, however, we may not omit
to notice those characteristic trees of the American forest,
the maples, particularly that most important member of
the family, the rock or sugar maple—Acer saccharinum.
Found generally interspersed with other hard-wood trees,
this tree is seen of largest and most frequent growth in
the Acadian forests on the slopes of the Cobequid hills,
and other similar ranges in Nova Scotia, often growing
together in large clumps. Such groves are termed
“ Sugaries,’ and are yearly visited by the settlers for
the plentiful supply of sap which, in the early spring,
courses between the bark and the wood, and from which
the maple sugar is extracted. Towards the end of
March, when winter is relaxing its hold, and the hitherto
frozen trees begin to feel the influence of the sun, the
settlers, old and young, turn into the woods with their
axes, sap-troughs, and boilers, and commence the opera-
42 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
tion of sugar-making. A fine young maple is selected ;
an oblique incision made by two strokes of the axe ata
few feet from the ground, and the pent-up sap im-
mediately begins to trickle and drop from the wound.
A wooden spout is driven in, and the trough placed
underneath ; next morning a bucketful of clear sweet
sap is removed and taken to the boiling-house. Some-
times two or three hundred trees are tapped at a time,
and require the attention of a large party of men. At
the camp, the sap is carefully boiled and evaporated
until it attains the consistency of syrup. At this stage
much of it is used by the settlers under the name of
“maple honey, or molasses.” Further boiling ; and on
pouring small quantities on to’ pieces of ice, it sud-
denly cools and contracts, and in this stage is called
_“ maple-wax,” which is much prized as a sweetmeat.
Just beyond this point the remaining sap is poured
into moulds, in which as it cools it forms the solid
saccharine mass termed “maple sugar.” Sugar may also
be obtained, though inferior in quality, from the various
birches ; but the sap of these trees is slightly acidulous,
and is more often converted into vinegar.
White or soft maple (A. dasycarpum), and the red
flowering maple (A. rubrum), are equally common trees.
Both contribute largely to the gorgeous colouring of the
fall, and the latter species clothes its leafless sprays in
the spring almost as brilliantly with scarlet blossoms.
Before these fade, a circlet of light green leaves appears
below, when a terminal shoot has a fitting place in an
ornamental bouquet of spring flowers.
As a rule, all the Aceraceze are noted for breadth of
leaf, and, being even more abundant than the birches in
THE FORESTS OF ACADIE. 43
the forests of Acadie, the solid appearance of the rolling
hard-wood hills is thus accounted for. These great
swelling billows in a sea of verdure form the grandest
feature of American forest scenery. In Vermont and
New Hampshire, to the westward of our provinces, they
become perfectly tempestuous. The black arrow-heads
of the spruces, or the slanting tops of the pines, pierce
through them distinctly enough, but the summits of the
hard-woods are blended together in one vast canopy of
light green foliage, in which the eye vainly seeks to trace
individual form.
Amongst the varieties of scenery presented by our
wild districts, I would notice the burnt barrens. These
sometimes extend for many miles, and are most dreary in
their appearance and painfully tedious to travel through.
Years ago, perhaps, some fierce fire has run through the
evergreen forest, and its ravages are now shown in the
spectacle before us. Gaunt white stems stand in groups,
presenting a most ghost-like appearance, and pointing
with their bleached branches at the prostrate remains of
their companions, which, strewed and mixed with matted
bushes and briars, lie beneath, rendering progress almost
impossible to the hunter or traveller.
In granitic districts, where the scanty soil—the result
of ages of cryptogamous vegetation and decay—has been
clean licked up by the fire, even the energetic power of
American vegetation appears utterly prostrated for a
period, as if hopeless of again assimilating the desert to
the standard of surrounding features.
As a contrast to such a scene, and in conclusion to
our dissertation on the forests, turn we to the smiling
intervale scenery of her alluvial valleys, for which
44 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
Acadie is so famous. Many of the rivers, coursing
smoothly through long tracts of the country, are broadly
margined by level meadows with rich soils, productive
of excellent pasture. The banks are adorned with orange
lilies; and the meadows, which extend between the
water and the uplands, shaded by clumps of elm B=
americana).
Almost the whole charm of these intervales (in an
artistic point of view) is due to the groups of this
oraceful tree, by which they are adorned. Its stem,
soon forking and diverging like that of the English horn-
beam, nevertheless carries the main bulk of the foliage
to a good elevation, the ends of the middle and lower — ;
branches bending gracefully downwards. The latter often
‘ hang for several yards, quite perpendicularly, with most
delicate hair-like branchlets and small leaves. We have
but one elm in this part of America; yet no one at first
sight would ever connect the tall trunk and twisted top
branches of the forest-growing tree with the elegant
form of the dweller in the pasture lands.
Whether from appreciation of its beauty, or in view of
the shade afforded their cattle, which always congregate
in warm weather under its pendulous branches, the
settlers agree in sparing the elm growing in such situa-
tions.
These long fertile valleys are further adorned by
copses of alders, dogwood, and willows—favourite haunts
of the American woodcock, which here alone finds
subsistence, the earth-worm being never met with in the
forest.
oe
E.
INTERVAL
AN
ELMS IN
CHAPTER II.
THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND THE NEW WORLDS.
THE MOOSE.
(Alee, Hamilton Smith ; Alee Americanus, Jardine.)
Muzzle very broad, produced, covered with hair, except a small, moist,
naked spot in front of the nostrils. Neck short and thick ; hair thick
and brittle ; throat rather maned in both sexes ; hind legs have the
tuft of hair rather above the middle of the metatarsus; the males
have palmate horns. The nose cavity in the skull is very large,
reaching behind to a line over the front of the grinders ; the inter-
maxillaries are very long, but do not reach to the nasal, The nasals
are very short.
In the foregoing diagnosis, taken from ‘“‘Gray’s Knowsley
Menagerie,” are summed up the principal characteristics
of the elk in the Old and New Worlds. In colour alone
the American moose presents an unimportant difference
to the Swedish elk, being much darker; its coat at the
close of summer quite black, when the males are in their —
prime. The European animal varies according to season
from brown to dark mouse-grey. In old bulls of the
American variety the coat is inclined to assume a grizzly
hue. The extremities only of the hairs are black; to-
wards the centre they become of a light ashy-grey,
and finally, towards the roots, dull white—the diffe-
rence of colour in the hair of the two varieties thus
46 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
being quite superficial. The males have a fleshy appen-
dage to the throat, termed the bell, from which and the
contiguous parts of the throat long black hair grows
profusely. A long, erect mane surmounts the neck
from the base of the skull to the withers. Its bristles
are of a lighter colour than those of the coat, and
partake of a reddish hue. At the base of the hair
the neck and shoulders are covered with a quantity of
very fine soft wool, curled and interwoven with the hair.
Of this down warm gloves of an extraordinarily soft
texture are woven by the Indians.
Moose hair is very brittle and inelastic. Towards its
junction with the skin it becomes wavy, the barrel of
each hair suddenly contracting like the handle of an oar
just before it enters the skin.*
_ Gilbert White, speaking of a female moose deer which
he had inspected, says: “The grand distinction between
this deer and any other species that I have ever met
with consisted in the strange length of its legs, on which
it was tilted up, much in the manner of birds of the
grallze order.” This length of limb is due, according to
Professor Owen, “to the peculiar length of the cannon
bones (metacarpi and metatarsi).”
The other noticeable peculiarities of the elk are the
* In “ Anatomical Descriptions of Several Creatures Dissected by the
Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, by Alexander Pitfield, F.R.S., 1688,”
the above peculiarity is thus described :—“ The hair was three inches long,
and its bigness equalled that of the coarsest horsehair; this bigness grew
lesser towards the extremity, which was pointed all at once, making, as it
were, the handle of a lance. This handle was of another colour than the
rest of the hair, being diaphanous like the bristles of a hog. It seems that
this part, which was finer and more flexible than the rest of the hair, was
so made to the end, that the hair which was elsewhere very hard might
keep close and not stand on end. This hair, cut through the middle,
appeared in the microscope spongy on the inside, like a rush.”
THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 47
great length of the head and ear, and the muscular
development of the upper lip; the movements of which,
directed by four powerful muscles arising from the maxil-
laries, prove its fitness as a prehensile organ. In form it
has been said to be intermediate between the snout of
the horse and of the tapir. I am indebted to Mr. Buck-
land for the following description of a skull, which had
been forwarded to him from Nova Scotia :—
“This splendid skull weighs ten pounds eleven ounces,
and is twenty-four inches and a-half in length. The
inter-maxillary bones are very much prolonged, to give
attachment to the great muscle or upper prehensile lip,
and the foramen in the bone for the nerve, which
supplies the ‘muffle’ with sensation, is very large. I
can almost get my little finger into it. The ethmoid
bone, upon which the nerves of smelling ramify them-
selves, is very much developed. No wonder the hunter
has such difficulty in getting near a beast whose nose
will telegraph the signal of ‘danger’ to the brain, even
when the danger is a long way off, and the ‘ walking
danger, if I have read the habits of North American
Indians, is in itself of a highly odoriferous character. The
cavities for the eyes are wide and deep. I should say the
moose has great mobility of the eye. The cavity for the
peculiar gland in front of the eye is greatly scooped out.
The process at the back of the head for the attachment
of the ligamentum nuche—the elastic ligament which,
like an india-rubber spring, supports the weight of the
massive head and ponderous horns without fatigue to the
owner, is much developed. The enamel on the molar
teeth forms islands with the dentine somewhat like the
pattern of the tooth of the common cow.”
48 - FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
The height of the elk at the withers but little exceeds
that at the buttock ; the back consequently has not that
slope to the rear so often misrepresented in drawings of
the animal. The appearance of extra height forwards is
given by the mane, which stands out from the ridge of
the neck, something like the bristles of an inverted
hearth-broom. The ears, which are considerably over a
foot in length in the adult animal, are of a light brown,
with a narrow marginal dark-brown rim ; the cavity is
filled with thick whitish-yellow hair. The naked skin
fringing the orbit of the eye is a dull pink ; the eye itself
of a dark sepia colour. Under the orbit there is an are
of very dark hair. The lashes of the upper lid are full, —
and rather over an inch in length. A large specimen
will measure six feet six inches in height at the shoulder ;
_ length of head from occiput to point of muffle, following
the curve, thirty-one inches ; from occiput to top of
withers in a straight line, twenty-nine inches ; and from
the last point horizontally to a vertical tangent of the
buttocks, fifty-two inches. A large number of measure-
ments in my possession, for the accuracy of which I can
vouch, show much variation of the length of back in ~
proportion to the height, thus probably accounting for a
commonly received opinion amongst the white settlers of
the backwoods that there are two varieties of the moose.
THE PAST HISTORY OF THE ELK.
The study of northern zoology presents a variety of
considerations interesting both to the student of recent
nature and to the palzeontologist. ‘Taking as well known
THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 49
instances the reindeer and musk-ox, there are forms yet
inhabiting the arctic and sub-arctic regions which may
be justly regarded as the remains of an ancient fauna
which once comprised many species now long since
extinct, and which with those already named, occupied a
far greater southerly extent of each of the continents
converging on the pole than would be possible under the
present climatal conditions of the world. With those
oreat types which have entirely disappeared before man
had recorded their existence in the pages of history, in-
cluding the mammoth (Elephas primigenius), the most
abundant of the fossil pachyderms, whose bones so crowd
the beaches and islands of the Polar Sea that in parts the
soil seems altogether composed of them, the Rhinoceros
tichorinus, and others, were associated genera, a few
species of which lived on into the historic period, and
have since become extinct, whilst others, occupying
restricted territory, are apparently on the verge of dis-
appearance. ‘All the species of European pliocene
bovidee came down to the historical period,” states Pro-
fessor Owen in his “ British Fossil Mammals,” “and the
aurochs and musk-ox still exist; but the one owes its
preservation to special imperial protection, and the other
has been driven, like the reindeer, to high northern lati-
tudes.” Well authenticated as is the occurrence of the
rangifer as a fossil deer of the upper tertiaries, the
evidence of its association in ages so remote, with Cervus
Alces, has been somewhat a matter of doubt. The elk
and the reindeer have always been associated in descrip-
tions of the zoology of high latitudes by modern natural-
ists, as they were when the boreal climate, coniferous
forests, and mossy bogs of ancient Gaul brought them
E
50 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE,
under notice of the classic pens of Cesar, Pausanias, and
Pliny. And there is a something in common to both of
these singular deer which would seem to connect them
equally with the period when they and the gigantic
contemporary genera now extinct roamed over so large
a portion of the earth’s surface in the north temperate
zone, where the fir-tree—itself geologically typical of a
oreat antiquity—constituted a predominant vegetation. —
The presence of the remains of Cervus Alces in associa-
tion with those of the mammoth, the great fossil musk-ox
(Ovibos), the fossil reimdeer, and two forms of bison in
the fossiliferous ice-cliffs of Eschscholtz Bay, as described -
by Sir John Richardson, would seem to be an almost
decisive proof of its existence at a time when the tempe-
rature on the shores of the Polar Sea was sufficiently
genial to allow of a vegetation affording browse and
cover to the great herds of mammals which have left —
their bones there, with buried, fossilised trees, attesting
the presence of a forest at.a latitude now unapproached
save by shrubs, such as the dwarf birch, and by that only
at a considerable distance to the south. The elk of the
present day, as we understand his habits, unlike the
musk-ox and reindeer, for which lichens and scanty
grasses in the valleys of the barren grounds under the
Polar circle afford a sufficient sustenance, is almost
exclusively a wood-eater, and could not have lived at
the locality above indicated under the present physical
aspects of the coasts of Arctic America, any more than
the herds of buffaloes, horses, oxen and sheep, whose
remains are mentioned by Admiral Von Wrangell as
having been found in the greatest profusion in the
interior of the islands of New Siberia, associated with
,
ee
THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 51
mammoth bones, could now exist in that icy wilderness.
On these grounds a high antiquity is claimed for the
sub-genus Alces, probably as great as that of the rein-
deer.
As a British fossil mammal, the true elk has not yet
been described, though for a long time the remains of
the now well-defined sub-genus Megaceros were ascribed
to the former animal. There is a statement, however, in
a recent volume of the “Zoologist” to the effect that the
painting of a deer’s head and horns, which were dug out
of a marl pit in Forfarshire, and presented to the Royal
Society of Edinburgh, is referable to neither the fallow,
red, nor extinct Irish deer, but to the elk, which may be
therefore regarded as having once inhabited Scotland.
The only recorded instance of its occurrence in England
is the discovery, a few years since, of a single horn at the
bottom of a bog on the Tyne. It was found lying on,
not in, the drift, and therefore can be only regarded as
recent.
Passing on to prehistoric times, when the remains of
the species found in connexion with human implements
prove its subserviency as an article of food to the hunters
of old, we find the bones of Cervus Alces in the Swiss
lake dwellings, and the refuse-heaps of that age ; whilst
in a recent work on travel in Palestine by the Rev. H.
B, Tristram, we have evidence of the great and ancient
fauna which then overspread temperate Hurope and Asia
having had a yet more southerly extension, for he dis-
covers a limestone cavern in the Lebanon; near Beyrout,
containing a breccious deposit teeming with the débris of
the feasts of prehistoric man—flint chippings, evidently
used as knives, mixed with bones in fragments and teeth,
B2
52 . FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
assignable to red or reindeer, a bison, and an elk. “Tf,”
says the author, “as. Mr, Dawkins considers, these teeth
are referable to those now exclusively northern quadrupeds,
we have evidence of the reindeer and elk having been
the food of man in the Lebanon not long before the
historic period ; for there is no necessity to put back to
any date of immeasurable antiquity the deposition of
these remains in a limestone cavern. And,” he adds,
with significant reference to the great extension of the
ancient zoological province of which we are speaking,
“there is nothing more extraordinary in this occurrence
than in the discovery of the bones of the tailless hare of ©
Siberia in the breccias of Sardinia and Corsica.”
The first allusion to the elk in the pages of history is
made by Ceesar in the sixth book “De Bello Gallico ”"—
“sunt item que appellantur Alces,’ etc. etc., a descrip- -
tion of an animal inhabiting the great Hercynian forest
of ancient Germany, in common with some other remark-
able feree, also mentioned, which can refer to no other,
the name being evidently Latinised from the old Teutonic
cognomen of elg, elch, or aelg, whence also our own term
elk. He speaks of the forest as commencing near the ~
territories of the Helvetii, and extending eastward along
the Danube to the country inhabited by the Dacians.
“Under this general name,’ says Dr. Smith, “ Ceesar
appears to have included all the mountains and forests
in the south and centre of Germany, the Black Forest,
Odenwald, Thiirmgenwald, the Hartz, the Erzgebirge, the
Riesengebirge, etc., etc. As the Romans became better
acquainted with Germany, the name was confined to
narrower limits. Pliny and Tacitus use it to indicate
the range of mountains between the Thiirmgenwald and
oe
THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 53
the Carpathians: The name is still preserved in the
modern Harz and Erz.” Gronovius states that the
German word was Hirtsenwald, or forest of stags. In
an old translation of the Commentaries I find the word
“alces ” rendered “a kind of wild asses,’ and really a
better term could hardly be applied, had the writer,
unacquainted with the animal, caught a passing glimpse
of an elk, especially of a young one without horns. But
it is evident that Ceesar alludes to a large species of deer,
and, although he compares them to goats (it is nearly
certain that the original word was “ capreis,” “caprea ”
being a kind of wild goat or roebuck), and received from
his informants the story of their being jointless—an
attribute, in those days of popular errors and super-
stitions, ascribed to other animals as well—the very fact
of their being hunted in the manner described, by
weakening trees, so that the animal leaning against them
would break them down, involving his own fall, proves
that the alce was a creature of ponderous bulk.
The descriptive paragraph alluded to contains one of
the fallacies which have always been attached to the
natural history of the elk, ancient and modern; and,
even now-a-days the singular appearance of the animal
attempting to browse on a low shrub close to the ground,
his legs not bent at the joint, but straddling stiffly as he
endeavours to cull the morsel with his long, prehensile
upper lip, might impart to the ignorant observer the idea
that the stilt-like legs were jointless. The fabrication of
their being hunted in the way described was, of course,
based on the popular error as to the formation of their
limbs. “ Mutileque sunt cormbus” may imply that
Ceesar, or more likely some of his men, had either seen a
54 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
female elk, or—as might be more acceptably inferred—a
male which had lost one horn, and consequently late in
the autumn, as it is well known that the horns are not
shed simultaneously. Pausanias speaks of the elk as
intermediate between the stag and the camel, as a most
sagacious animal, and capable of distinguishing the odour
of a human being at a great distance, taken by hunters
in the same manner as is now pursued in the “skall” of
north Europe, and as being indigenous to the country of
the Celtze; whilst Pliny declares it to be a native of
Scandinavia, and states that at his time it had not been
exhibited at the Roman games. At a later period the —
animal became better known, for Julius Capitolinus
speaks of elks bemg shown by Gordian, and Vopiscus
mentions that Aurelian exhibited the rare spectacle of the
elk, the tiger, and the giraffe, when he triumphed over
Zenobia.
In these few notices is summed up all that has been
preserved of what may be termed the ancient history of
the European elk. An interesting reflection is suggested
as to what were the physical features of central Hurope in
those days. It seems evident that ancient France, then
called Gaul, was a region of alternate forests and
morasses in which besides the red and the roe, the rein-
deer abounded, if not the elk; that in crossing the Alps,
a vast, continuous forest, commencing on the confines of
modern Switzerland, occupied the valleys and slopes of
the Alps, from the sources of the Rhine to an eastern
boundary indicated by the Carpathian mountains, and
embraced, as far as its northern extension was known,
the plateau of Bohemia. Strange and fierce animals,
hitherto unknown to the Romans—accustomed as they
iri
— a
———— ——————EE———————E———E
THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 55
had been to seeing menageries of creatures brought from
other climes, dragged in processions and into the arena
—were found in these forests. The urus or wild bull,
now long extinct, “in size,” says Ceesar, “little less than
the elephant, and which spares neither man nor beast
when they have been presented to his view.” The savage
aurochs yet preserved in a Lithuanian forest, the elk and
the reindeer were their denizens, and formed the beef and
venison on which the fierce German hunters of old sub-
sisted. “The hunting of that day” may be well imagined
to have been very different to the most exciting of
modern field sports, and continued down to the thirteenth
century, as is shown by the well-known passage from the
Niebelungen poem, where the hero, Sifrid, slays some of
the great herbivoree—the bison, the elk, and the urus—
as well as “einen grimmen Schelch,” about the identity
of which so much doubt has arisen, though the conjecture
has been offered by Goldfuss, Major Hamilton Smith,
and others, that the name refers to no other than the
great Irish elk or megaceros..
The recent notices of the elk contained in some curious
old works on the countries of northern Europe and their
natural history are valuable merely as indicating the
presence and range of the animal in certain regions. The
errors and extravagances of the classic naturalists still
obtained, and tinged all such writings to the commence-
ment of the great epoch of modern natural history
ushered in by St. Hilaire and Cuvier. A confused
account of the animal is given by Scaliger, and it is
mentioned by Gmelin in his Asiatic travels. Olaus
Magnus, the Swedish bishop, says, “The elks come from
the north, where the inhabitants call them elg or elges.”
56 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
Scheffer, in his history of Lapland, published in 1701,
speaks of that country “as not containing many elks, but
that they rather pass thither out of Lithuania.” Other
writers mention it, but, whenever a scientific description
is attempted it is full of credulous errors, such as its
liability to epileptic fits—a belief entertained not only
by the peasants of northern Europe, but likewise,
with regard to the moose, by the North American
Indians ; its attempt to relieve itself of the disease by
opening a vein behind the ear with the hind foot, whence
pleces of the hoof were worn by the peasants as a pre-
ventive against falling sickness ; and its being obliged to —
browse backwards through the upper lip. becoming en-—
tangled with the teeth.* There are also ample notices
of the elk in the works of Pontoppidan and Nilsson ;
Albertus Magnus and Gesner state that in the twelfth
century it was met with in Sclavonia and Hungary. The
former writer calls it the equicervus or horse hart. In
1658 Edward Topsel published his “ History of Four-
footed Beasts and Serpents : to be procured at the Bible,
on Ludgate-hill, and at the Key, in Paul’s Churchyard.”
At page 165 he treats of the elk: “They are not found
but in the colder northern regions, as Russia, Prussia,
Hungaria, and Illyria, in the wood; Hercynia, and
among the Borussian Scythians, but most plentiful in
Scandinavia, which Pausanias calleth the Celtes.”
* Mr. Buckland, referring to the above statement in “ Land and Water,”
says :—“ Of course some part of the elk was used medicinally. Our
ancestors managed to get a ‘pill et haustus’ out of all things, from
vipers up to the moss in human skulls. The Pharmacopeeia of the day
prescribes a portion of the hoof worn in a ring ; ‘it resisteth and freeth
from the falling evil, the cramp, and cureth the fits or pangs” Fancy an
hysterical lady being told to take ‘elk’s hoof’ for a week, to be followed
by ‘hart’shorn’”
a
.
THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 57
The accounts given by the earlier American voyagers
of Cervus Alces—there found under the titles of moose
(Indian) or [original (French)—were also highly exag-
gerated ; though, considering that they received their
descriptions from the Indians, who to this day believe in
many romantic traditions concerning the animal, they
are excusable enough. From the writings of Josselyn,*
Denys, Charlevoix, Le Hontan, and others, little can be
learnt of the natural history of the moose. Suffice it to
say, that they represented it as being ten or twelve feet
in height, with monstrous antlers, stalking through the
forest and browsing on the foliage at an astonishing
elevation. It was consequently long believed that the
American animal was much larger than his European
congener ; and when the gigantic horns of the Megaceros
were first ascribed to an elk, it was to the former that
they were referred by Dr. Molyneux.
RECENT NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SPECIES.
Commencing its modern history, let us now briefly
trace the limits within which the elk is found in Europe,
Asia, and—regarding the moose as at least congeneric—
America. It is to the sportsmen and naturalists who
* “The moose or elke is a creature, or rather, if you will, a monster of
superfluity ; a full grown moose is many times bigger than an English
oxe ; their horns, as I have said elsewhere, very big and brancht out into
palms, the tops whereof are sometimes found to be two fathoms asunder
(a fathom is six feet from the tip of one finger to the tip of the other, that
is four cubits), and in height from the toe of the fore feet to the pitch of
the shoulder twelve foot, both of which hath been taken by some of my
sceptique readers to be monstrous lies.”—Josselyn’s Voyages to New England,
pub, 1674,
58 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
have recently written on the field sports of the Scandina-
vian Peninsula that we are indebted for nearly all our
information on the natural history of this animal, and its
geographical distribution in northern Hurope. The works
of Messrs. Lloyd and Barnard contain ample notices.
“ At the present day,” says the latter author, “ it is found
in Sweden, south of the province of East Gothland.
Angermanuland is its northernmost boundary.” The late
Mr. Wheelwright, in “Ten Years in Sweden,” which con-
tains an admirable synopsis of the fauna and flora of that
country, places the limits of the elk in Scandinavia
between 58° North lat. and 64°. Mr. Barnard states that —
“it likewise inhabits Finland, Lithuania, and Russia, —
from the White Sea to the Caucasus. It is also found in
the forests of Siberia to the River Lena, and in the neigh-
-bourhood of the Altai mountains.” Von Wrangel met
with the elk—though becoming scarce, through excessive
hunting and the desolation of the forest by fire—in the
Kolymsk district, in the almost extreme north-east of
Siberia. Erman, another eminent scientific traveller in
Siberia, describes it as abundant in the splendid pine
forests which skirt the Obi, and mentions it on several
occasions in the narrative of his journey eastward through
the heart of the country to Okhotsk. It has been recently —
noticed amongst the mammalia of Amoorland, and as
principally inhabiting the country round the lower.
Amoor. It is thus seen that the domains of the elk
in the Eastern Hemisphere are immensely extensive,
lying between the Arctic Circle—indeed, approaching the -
Arctic Ocean, where the great rivers induce a northern
extension of the wooded region—and the fiftieth parallel
of north latitude, from which, however, as it meets
Siege GES Oa yr
I ee
en a es lade E
CT
THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 59
greater civilisation in the western portion of the Russian
empire, it recedes towards the sixtieth.
In the New World, it would appear from old. narra-
tives that the moose (as we must unfortunately continue
to call the elk, whose proper title has been misappro-
priated to Cervus canadensis) once extended as far south .
as the Ohio. Later accounts represent its southern limit
on the Atlantic coast to be the Bay of Fundy, the coun-
tries bordering which—Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
and the State of Maine—appear to be the most favourite
abode of the moose ; for nowhere in the northern and
western extension of the North American forest do we
find this animal so numerous as in these districts. Absent
from the islands of Prince Edward, Anticosti, and New-
foundland, it is found on the Atlantic sea-board, and to
the north of New Brunswick, in the province of Gaspé ;
across the St. Lawrence, not further to the eastward
than the Saguenay, though it was met with formerly on
the Labrador as far as the river Godbout. The absence
of the moose in Newfoundland appears unaccountable ;
for, although a large portion of this great island is com-
posed of open moss-covered plateaux and broad savannahs
—favourite resorts of the cariboo or American reindeer—
yet it contains tracts of forest, principally coniferous,
of considerable extent, in which birch, willow, and
swamp-maple are sufficiently abundant to afford an
ample subsistence to the former animal, which is stated
by Sir J. Richardson to ascend the rivers in the north-
west of America nearly to the Arctic Circle—as far, in
fact, as the willows grow on the banks.
Assuming that the moose is still found in New Hamp-
shire and Vermont, where it exists, according to Audubon
60 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE,
and Bachman, at long intervals, we may therefore define
its limits on the eastern coasts of North America as lying
between 43° 30’ and the fiftieth parallel of latitude.
In following the lines of limitation of the species
across the continent, we perceive an easy guide in con-
sidering its natural vegetation. As regards the general
features of the forests which the moose affects, we find
them princjpally characterised by the presence of the fir
tribe and their associations of damp swamps and soft
open bogs, provided that they are sufficiently removed
from the region of perpetual ground-frost to allow of the
requisite growth of deciduous shrubs and trees on which —
the animal subsists. The best indication, therefore, of
the dispersion of the moose through the interior of the
continent is afforded by tracing the development of the
_ forest southwards from the northern limit of the growth
of trees.
The North American forest has its most arctic exten-
sion in the north-west, where it is almost altogether
composed of white spruce (Abies alba), a conifer which,
when met with in far more genial latitudes, appears to.
prefer bleak and exposed situations. Several species of
Salix fringe the river banks, and feeding on these we first:
find the moose, even on the shores of the Arctic Sea,
where Franklin states it to have been seen at the mouth
of the Mackenzie, in latitude 69°. Further to the east-
ward Richardson assigns 65° as the highest limit of its
range ; and in this direction it follows the general course
of the coniferous forest in its rapid recession from the
arctic circle, determined by the lme of perpetual ground-
frost, which comes down on the Atlantic sea-board to the
fifty-ninth parallel, cutting off a large section of Labra-
THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 61
dor. To the northward of this line are the treeless wastes,
termed barren-grounds, the territory of the small arctic
eariboo. |
The monotonous character and paucity of species of
the evergreen forest in its southern extension continues
until the valley of the Saskatchewan is reached, where
some new types of deciduous trees appear—balsam-
poplar, and maple—forming a great addition to the
hitherto scanty fare of the moose. Here, however, the
forest is divided into two streams by the north-western
corner of the great prairies—the one following the slopes
of the Rocky Mountains, whilst the other edges the plains
to the south of Winipeg and the Canadian lakes. In the
former district, and west of the mountains, the Columbia
river is assigned as the limit of the moose. On the other
course the animal appears to be co-occupant with the
wapiti, or prairie elk, of the numerous spurs of forest
which jut out into the plains, and of the isolated patches
locally termed moose-woods. Constantly receiving acces-
sion of species in its south-westerly extension, the Cana-
dian forest is fully developed at Lake Superior, and there
exhibits that pleasing admixture of deciduous trees with
the nobler conifers—the white pine and the hemlock
spruce—which conduces to its peculiarly beautiful as-
pect. This large tract of forest, which, embracing the
great lakes and the shores of the St. Lawrence, stretches
away to the Atlantic sea-board, and covers the provinces
of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward’s
Island, including a large portion of the Northern States,
has been termed by Dr. Cooper, in his excellent mono-
graph on the North American forest-trees, the Lacustrian
Province, from the number of its great lakes ; it is chiefly
62 . FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
characterised by the predominance of evergreen coniferee.
It was all at one time plentifully occupied by the moose,
which is now but just frequent enough in its almost
inaccessible retreats in the Adirondack hills to be classed
amongst the quadrupeds of the State of New York.
The range of the animal across the continent is thus
indicated, and its association with the physical features
of the American forest. As before remarked, the neigh-
bourhood of the Bay of Fundy appears to be its present
most favoured habitat ; and it seems to rejoice especially
in the low-lying, swampy woods, and innumerable lakes
and river-basins of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
The scientific diagnosis of the Alcine groups (Hamilton
Smith) having been detailed already, we pass on to
describe the habits of the American moose—the result
_ of a long period of personal observation in the localities
last mentioned. First, however, a few remarks on the
specific identity of the true elks of the two hemispheres
seem as much called for at this time as when Gilbert
White, writing exactly a century ago, asks, “ Please to let
me hear if my female moose” (one that he had inspected
at Goodwood, and belonging to the Duke of Richmond)
“corresponds with that you saw; and whether you still
think that the American moose and European elk are the
same creature?” In reference to this interesting ques-
tion, my own recent careful observations and measure-
ments of the Swedish elks at Sandringham compared
with living specimens of moose of the same age examined
in America, convince me of their identity; whilst the
late lamented Mr. Wheelwright, with whom I have had
an interesting correspondence on the subject, states in
“Ten Years in Sweden”: “The habits, size, colour, and
© eae
.
A Se Ae ee
‘
9 ee i
THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 63
form of our Swedish elk so precisely agree with those of
the North American moose in every respect, that unless
some minute osteological difference can be found to exist
(as in the case of the beavers of the two countries), I
think we may fairly consider them as one and the same
animal.”* The only difference of this nature that I ever
heard of as supposed to exist, consisted in a greater
breadth being accredited to the skull, at the most pro-
tuberant part of the maxillaries, in the case of the Euro-
pean elk. This I find is set aside in the comparative
diagnosis at. the Museum of the Royal College of Sur-
* The following corroborative statement has appeared in “Land and
Water,” from the pen of a correspondent whose initials are appended :—
“T beg to state my opinion that the elk of North America and of Northern
Europe are identical. Having lived four years in New Brunswick and
Nova Scotia, and having had the opportunity since I have been living in
Prussia of seeing the interesting paintings of the elk of East Prussia,
executed by Count Oscar Krochow, I have very little doubt on the subject ;
indeed, the differences are so trifling and so manifestly the result of climatic
influences, that as a sportsman I have no doubts whatever. The elk (Elend
thier, Elenn thier, Elech or Elk in German) is still found in the forest
lying between the Russian frontier and the Curische Huff, in the govern-
mental district of Gumbinnen, where it is strictly preserved, and where
its numbers have considerably increased in late years. I think that only
six stags are allowed to be shot yearly in this district, and permission is
only to be obtained on very particular recommendation to high authorities
in Berlin. The best German sporting authorities and sporting naturalists
consider the moose deer of North America and the elk of Northern Europe
to be identical. The elk was not extinct in Saxony till after the year 1746,
and is still found in Prussia, Livonia, Finland, Courland (where it is called
Halang), in the Ural, and in Siberia. Perhaps the greatest numbers are
found in the Tagilsk forests in the Ural, where the elk grows to an
enormous size. The size and weight, shape of the antlers, its having
topmost height at the shoulder, the shape and mode of carrying the head,
prolongation of the snout to what is called (in North America) ‘the mooffle,’
the awkward trotting gait, and also its power of endurance and the dis-
tances which it travels when alarmed, all concur in establishing the identity
of the North American and Northern European elks. The elk of Northern
Europe goes with young forty weeks ; the rutting season commences in
Lithuania (East Prussia) about the end of August, and lasts through
September. As well as can be established by recent observation, the
duration of life is from sixteen to eighteen years,”—B, W. (Berlin),
64 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
geons, in which no grounds of distinction whatever are
evidenced. Vs | |
- I consider that this and’ the other arctic deer—the —
rangifers (excepting, perhaps, in the latter instance the
small barren-ground cariboo, which is probably a distinet
species)—owe any differences of colour or. size, or even
shape of the antler, to local variation, influenced by the
physical features of the country they inhabit. There is
more variation in the woodland cariboo of America in i%
distribution across the continent than I am able to perceive
between the elks of the Old and New World. As migra-
tory deer, occupying the same great zoological province,
almost united in its arctic margin, we need not look for
difference of species as we do in the case of animals whose
zones of existence are more remote from the Pole, and
_ where we find identical species replaced by typical.
The remark of an old writer that the elk is a “melan-
cholick beast, fearful to be seen, delighting in nothing
but moisture,” expresses the cautious and retiring habits
of the moose, and the partiality which it evinces for the
long, mossy swamps, where the animal treads deeply and
noiselessly on a soft cushion of sphagnum. ‘These swamps
are of frequent occurrence round the margins of lakes,
and occupy low ground everywhere. They are covered
by arank growth of black spruce (Abies nigra), of stunted
and unhealthy appearance, their roots perpetually bathed
by the chilling water which underlies the sphagnum, and
their contorted branches shaggy with usnea. The cin-
namon fern (Osmunda cinnamomea) grows luxuriantly ;
and its waving fronds, tinged orange-brown in the fall of
the year, present a pleasing contrast to the light sea-
green carpet of. moss from. which they spring profusely.
ee
OE
THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 65
A few swamp-maple saplings, withrod bushes (viburnum),
and mountain-ash, occur at intervals near the edge of
the swamp, where the ground is drier, and offer a
mouthful of browse to the moose, who, however, mostly
frequenting these localities in the rutting season, seldom
partake of food. Here, accompanied by his consort,
the bull remains, if undisturbed, for weeks together ;
and, if a large animal, will claim to be the monarch of
t'e swamp, crashing with his antlers against the tree
stems should he hear a distant rival approaching, and
making sudden mad rushes through the trees that can
be heard at a long distance. At frequent intervals the
‘moss is torn up in a large area, and the black mud
scooped out by the bull pawing with the fore-foot.
Round these holes he continually resorts. The strong
musky effluvia evolved by them is exceedingly offensive,
and can be perceived at a considerable distance. They
are examined with much curiosity by the Indian hunter
(who is not over particular) to ascertain the time elapsed
since the animal was last on the spot. A similar fact is
noticed by Mr. Lloyd in the case of the European elk,
“orop” being the Norse term applied to such cavities
found in similar situations in the Scandinavian forest,
The rutting season commences early in September, the
horns of the male being by that time matured and _har-
dened. An Indian hunter has told me that he has called
up a moose in the third week of August, and found the
velvet still covering the immature horn ; however, the
connexion between the cessation of further emission of
horn matter from the system owing to strangulation of
the ducts at the burr of the completed antler, with the
advent of the sexual.season, is so well established as a
F
66 . FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
fact in the natural history of the Cervine that such an
instance must be regarded as exceptional. The first two
or three days of September over, and the moose has
worked off the last ragged strip of the deciduous skin
against his favourite rubbing-posts—the stems of young
hacmatack (larch) and alder bushes, and with conscious |
pride of condition and strength, with clean hard antlers
and massive neck, is ready to assert his claims against
all rivals. A nobler animal does not exist in the American
forest ; nor, whatever may have been asserted about his
ungainliness of gait and appearance, a form more entitled.
to command admiration, calculated, indeed, on first being -
confronted with the forest giant, to produce a feeling of
awe on the part of the young hunter. To hear his dis-
tant crashings through the woods, now and then drawing
his horns across the brittle branches of dead timber as if
- to intimidate the supposed rival, and to see the great
black mass burst forth from the dense forest and stalk
majestically towards you on the open barren, is one of
the grandest sights that can be presented to a sports-
man’s eyes in any quarter of the globe. His coat now
lies close, with a gloss reflecting the sun’s rays like that
of a well-groomed horse. His prevailing colour, if in his
prime, is jet black, with beautiful golden-brown legs, and
flanks pale fawn. The swell of the muscle surrounding
the fore-arm is developed like the biceps of a prize-
fighter, and stands well out to the front. I have mea-
sured a fore-arm of a large moose over twenty inches in
circumference. The neck is nearly as round as a barrel,
and of immense thickness. The horns are of a light
yellowish white stained with chestnut patches ; the tines
rather darker; and the base of the horn, with the lowest
bm Yi eee
PS EE Se ee ee
A
wt
; :
7 aaa << ———
THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 67
eroup of prongs projecting forwards, of a dark reddish
brown.
At this season the bulls fight desperately. Backed
by the immense and compact neck, the collision of the
antlers of two large rivals is heard on a still autumnal
night, like the report of a gun. If the season is young,
the palm of the horn is often pierced by the tines of the
adversary, and I have picked up broken fragments of
tines where a fight has occurred. Though at other
seasons they rarely utter a sound, where moose are plen-
tiful they may be heard all day and night. The cows
utter a prolonged and strangely-wild call, which is imi-
- tated by the Indian hunter through a trumpet of rolled-
up birch-bark to allure the male. The bull emits several
sounds. ‘Travelling through the woods in quest of a
mate, he is constantly “talking,” as the Indians say,
giving out a suppressed guttural sound—quoh! quoh!
—which becomes much sharper and more like a bellow
when he hears a distant cow. Sometimes he bellows in
rapid succession ; but when approaching the neighbour-
hood of the forest where he has heard the call of the cow
moose, and for which he makes a bee line at first, he
becomes much more cautious, speaking more slowly, con-
stantly stopping to listen, and often finally making a long
noiseless détowr of the neighbourhood, so as to come up
from the windward, by which means he can readily
detect the presence of lurking danger These latter
cautious manoeuvres on the part of the moose are, how-
ever, more frequently exercised in districts where they
are much hunted ; in their less accessible retreats the old
bulls will often rush up to the spot without hesitation.
The suspicious and angry bull will often go into a thick
F 2
68 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
swamp and lay about him amongst the spruce stems right
and left, now and then making short rushes—the dead
sticks flying before him with reports like pistol shots. I
have often heard a strange sound produced by moose
when “real mad,” as the Indians would say—a half-
choked sound as if there was a stoppage in the wind-pipe,
which might be expressed—hud-jup, hud-jup! When
with his mate, his note is plaintive and coaxing—cooah,
cooah ! !
A veteran hunter, now dead, well-known in Nova
Scotia as Joe Cope—to be regretted as one of the last
examples of a thorough Indian, and gifted with extra- —
ordinary faculties for the chase—thus described to me,
over the camp-fire, one of his earlier reminiscences of the
~ woods—the subject being a moose fight.
It was a bright night in October, and he was alone,
calling, on an elevated ridge which overlooked a great
extent of forest land. “TI call,” said he, “and in all my
life I never hear so many moose answer. Why, the place
was bilin’ with moose. By-and-by I hear two coming
just from opposite ways—proper big bulls I knew from
the way they talked. They come right on, and both ~
come on the little hill at same time—pretty hard place,
too, to climb up, so full of rocks and windfalls. When
they coming up the hill, I never hear moose make such
a shockin’ noise, roarin’, and tearin’ with their horns. I
just step behind some bushes, and lay down. They meet
just at the top, and directly they seen one another, they
went to it. Well, Capten, you wouldn’t b’lieve what a
noise—just the same as if gun gone off. Well, they
ripped away, till I couldn’t stand it no longer, and I shot
one of the poor brutes ; the other he didn’t seem to mind
THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 69
the gun one bit—no more noise than what he been
makin’, and he thought he killed the moose; so I just
loaded quick, and I shot him too. What fine moose
them was—both layin’ together on the rocks! No moose
like them now-a-days, Capten.”
It is not long since that an animated controversy ap-
peared in the columns of a sporting paper under the
heading “Do stags roar?” It was decided, I believe,
that such was the case with the red-deer of the Scottish
hills, by the testimony of many sportsmen. I can testify
that such is also a habit of the moose, and many will
corroborate this statement. On two occasions in the fall
I have heard the strange and, until acquainted with its
origin, almost appalling sound emitted by the moose. It
is a deep, hoarse, and prolonged bellow, more resembling
a feline than a bovine roar. Once it occurred when a
moose, hitherto boldly coming up at night to the Indians’
eall, had suddenly come on our tracks of the previous
evening when on our way to the calling-ground. On the
other occasion I followed a pair of moose for more than
an hour, guided solely by the constantly repeated roar-
ings of the bull, which I shot in the aet.
Young moose of the second and third year are later
in their season than the old bulls. Before the end of
October, when their elders have retired, though they will
generally readily answer the Indians’ call from a dis-
tance, they show great caution in approaching—stealthily
hovering round, seldom answering, and creeping along
the edges of the barren or lake so as to get to leeward of
the caller, making no crashing with their horns against
the trees as do the older bulls, and always adopting the
moose-paths. In consequence they are seldom called up.
70 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
When the moose wishes to beat a retreat in silence, his
suspicions being aroused, he can effect the same with
marvellous stealth. Not a branch is heard to snap, and
the horns are so carefully carried through the densest
thickets that I believe a porcupine or a rabbit would
make more noise when alarmed.
In the fall the bull moose, forgetting his hitherto cau-
tious habits of moving through the forest, seems, on the
contrary, bent on making himself heard, “ sounding” (as
the Indians term it) his horns against a tree with a pecu-
liar metallic rmg. Sometimes the ear of the hunter,
intently listening for signs of advancing game, is as-
sailed by a most tremendous clatter from some distant
swamp or burnt-wood, “just (as my Indian once aptly
- expressed it) as if some one had taken and hove down a
pile of old boards.” It is the moose, defiantly sweeping
his forest of tines right and left amongst the brittle
branches of the ram-pikes, as the scathed pines, hardened
by fire, are locally termed. The resemblance of the
sound of the bull when he’answers at a great distance off
to the chopping of an axe is very distinct ; and even the
practised ear of the sharpest Indian is often exercised in
long and ‘anxiously criticising the sound before he can
make up his mind from which it emanates. There are
of frequent occurrence, in districts. frequented by these
animals, what are termed moose-paths — well-defined
lines of travel and of communication between their feeding
grounds which, when seeking a new browsing country,
or when pursued, they invariably make for and follow.
These paths, which in some places are scarcely visible, at
other times are broad enough to afford a good line of
travel to a man; they are also used by bears and wild
a ee
See Ee
ae
THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 71
eats. Sometimes they connect the little mossy bogs
which often run in chains through a low-lying evergreen
forest ; at others they traverse the woods round the
edges of barrens, skirting lakes and swamps. I have
often observed that moose, chased from a distance into a
strange district, will at once and intuitively take to one
of these moose-paths.
With the exception of the leaves and tendrils of the
yellow pond lily (Nuphar advena), eaten when wallowing
in the lakes in summer, and an occasional bite at a tus-
sack of broad-leaved grass growing in dry bogs, the food
of the moose is solely afforded by leaves and young
terminal shoots of bushes. The following is a list of
trees and shrubs from which I picked specimens, showing
the browsing of moose, on returning to camp one winter's
afternoon. Red maple, white birch, striped maple, swamp
’ maple, balsam fir, poplar, witch hazel, mountain ash.
The withrod is as often eaten, and apparently relished
as a tonic bitter, as the mountain ash; but the young
poplar growing up in recently burnt lands in small
eroves, with tender shoots, appears to form the most
frequently sought item of diet. In winter young spruces
are often eaten, as, also, is the silver fir; in the latter
case the Indians say the animal is sick. The observant
eye of the Indian hunter can generally tell in winter,
should drifting snow cover up its tracks, the direction in
which the moose has proceeded, feeding as he travels, by
the appearance of the bitten boughs ; as the incisors of
the lower jaw cut into the bough, the muscular upper lip
breaks it off from the opposite side, leaving a rough pro-
jection surmounting a clean-cut edge, by which the
position of the passing animal is indicated. The wild
72 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
meadow hay stacked by the settlers back in the woods is
never touched by moose, though I have seen them eat
hay when taken young and brought up in captivity. A
young one in my possession would also graze on grass,
which, vainly endeavouring to crop by widely straddling
with the forelegs he would finally drop on his knees to
eat, and thus would advance a step or two to reach
further, and in a most ludicrous manner.
To get at the foliage out of reach of his mouffle the
animal resorts to the practice of riding down young
trees, as shown in the accompanying woodcut. |
The teeth of the moose are arranged according to the
dental formula of all ruminants, though I once saw a
lower jaw containing nine perfect incisors. The crown
. of the molar is deeply cleft, and the edges of the enamel
‘surrounding the cutting surfaces very sharp and hard as —
adamant —beautifully adapted to reduce the coarse
sapless branches on-which it is sometimes compelled to
subsist in winter, when accumulated snows shut it out
from seeking more favourable feeding grounds. I have ©
often heard it asserted by Indian hunters that a large -
stone is to be found in the stomach of every moose.
This, of course, is a fable; but a few years since I was
given a calculus from a moose’s stomach which I had
sawn in two. The concentric rings were well defined,
and were composed of radiating crystals like needles. The
nucleus was plainly a portion of a broken molar tooth
which the animal had swallowed. ’
LAKE DWELLERS. 173
solid construction of interwoven bushes and poles, dam-
ming up the water behind to a height of between three
and four feet, and completely altering the features of the
brook, which from this point was all still water. We
landed on the top to open out a portion, and therehy
facilitate the’ canoes being lifted over. Some of the
work was quite fresh, and green leaves tipped the ends
of projecting branches ; whilst on the shore lay a pile of
water-rotted material that had been removed, and evi-
dently considered unserviceable, Stones and mud were
plentifully intermixed with the bushes, which were
mostly cut into lengths of twelve to eighteen feet, and
woven together across the stream. The top, which
would support us all without yielding, was about two
feet broad, and the dam thickened below the surface.
Some stout bushes leaned against the construction in
front. They were planted in the bed of the stream;
and, as Glode said, were used as supports in making the
dam. Above was a long meadow of wild grass to which
the white gaunt stems of dead pines, drowned ages since
by the heightened level of the stream, imparted a deso-
late appearance, and near the head of which the beavers
had their habitations.”
This dam, and one or two others which I had an
opportunity of observing, was built straight across the
stream, but it is a well authenticated fact that in larger
works, where the channel is broader, and liable to heavy
waters, the dam is made convex to the current. Some-
times a small island in the centre is taken advantage of,
and the dam built out to it from either bank, as in-
stanced by a very large one noticed on the Sable river, a
few miles west of Rossignol, where the sticks used in its
174 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
construction were often three inches in diameter, and the
country above, on either side, flooded to the extent of
nearly two fect, covering about one thousand acres of
meadow land. These dams possess great strength and
durability. In old and deserted works trees spring from
the soil, which is plentifully mixed with the brushwood
and grass covers the embankment.* Many such monu-
ments of the former labours of the beaver are to be seen
in Nova Scotia, in districts long since untenanted.
As the beaver residing on the lakes does not build a
dam in the vicinity of his dwelling, the reason of the
strong instinct implanted in this animal to produce these
marvellous constructions under other circumstances be- —
comes apparent.t Whenever, from the situation or nature
of the water, there is a probability of the supply becom-
ing shortened by drought, and to ensure sufficient water
‘to enter his dwelling from beneath the ice in winter, the
beaver constructs a dam below to maintain the supply of
water necessary to meet either of these contingencies.
In former years, when beaver abounded in all parts of
* Mr. Thompson, whose writings are preserved in Canada as most valuable
and authentic, speaking of a beaver-dam which he saw, states: “On a fine
afternoon in October, 1794, the leaves beginning to fall with every breeze,
my guide informed me that we should have to pass over a long beaver-dam.
I naturally expected that we should have to lead our horses carefully over it.
When we came to it, we found it a stripe of apparently old solid ground,
covered with short grass, and wide enough for two horses to walk abreast.
The lower side showed a descent of seven feet, and steep, with a rill of
water from beneath it ; the side of the dam next the water was a gentle
slope. To the southward was a sheet of water of about one mile and a half
square, surrounded by low grassy banks. The forests were mostly of poplar
and aspen, with numerous stumps of the trees cut down, and partly carried
away by the beavers. In two places of this pond were a cluster of beaver-
houses like miniature villages.”
+ I have, however, seen the outlet of very small lakes dammed up,
evidently to raise the level of the surface to some eligible site near the
. Inargin, which has offered some advantage or other.
ge ee a
LAKE DWELLERS. 175
the Province, it is evident from the numerous beaver
meadows now left dry, that they took advantage not
only of valleys traversed by small brooks, but even of
swampy lands occasionally inundated by heavy rains.
The beaver-house is constructed of the same materials
as the dam. Branches of trees and bushes, partially
trimmed and closely interwoven, are mixed with stones,
gravel or mud, according to the nature of the soil; and
on the outside are strewed the barked sticks of willow,
poplar, or birch, on which the animal feeds. As before
stated, it looks like a huge bird’s nest, turned upside
down, and is generally located in the grassy coves of
lakes, by the edge of still-water runs or of artificial
ponds, and, less frequently, by a river side, where a bend
or jutting rocks afford a deep eddying pool near the
bank. The house rests on the bank, but always overlaps
the water, into which the front part is immersed ; and,
as a general rule, the bottom of the stream or lake is
deepened in the channel approaching the entrance by
dredging, thereby ensuring a free passage below the ice.
In these channels or canals, easily found by probing
with the paddle, the hunter sets his iron spring-traps.
The following passages from my camp notes describe the
construction of the beaver-house, as shown in all the
habitations which we examined in these waters :—
“Foot or Rossteanon, September 4.
““Camped on a beautiful spot, the effluence of the
river from the lake, in Indian parlance, the ‘ seeedwick,’
always a favourite camping ground. It was a decided
oak opening, an open grove of white oaks, with a soft
sward underneath ; the trees were grouped as in a park,
176 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
A few low islands covered with ferns partially broke the
breadth of the river, which here left the smooth expanses
of the lake on its race to the Atlantic, about twenty
miles below; and here our rods bent incessantly over
the struggles of trout, frequently two at a time. We
intend staying here several days to rest after the long
weary journey up and down the Tobiaduc stream ; and
as it is now September, a brace or two of ruffed grouse, or
even a moose steak, may add to our hitherto scanty forest
fare of porcupine and trout. Beneath these white oaks
repose the sires of the Micmacs of this district; it was
once a populous village, of which the only remaining ~
tokens are the swelling mounds covered with fern, and
the plentiful bones, the produce of the chase, scattered
_ over the ground. Our canoe-men seemed quite subdued,
perhaps a little overcome by superstitious awe on pitch-
ing our camp here on the site of their ancestors’ most
favoured residence. With a road through to the town
of Liverpool, this lovely spot will one day, ere long,
become a thriving settlement. I would desire no more
romantic retreat were I to become a settler ; but always
bear in mind the lesson inculcated for all intending mili-
tary settlers who may be carried away by their enthu-
siasm for the picturesque scenery of the summer and fall
in Nova Scotia, to try their luck away back from civyili-
zation, in the well-told and pathetic story of ‘ Cucumber
Lake, by Judge Haliburton. To-day Glode and I walked
back from the lake about three miles, through thick
woods, to see a beaver-house on a brook of which he
knew. We found it without difficulty, as the grass and —
fern for some distance below was much trodden down,
and proceeded to make a careful investigation of its
LAKE DWELLERS. 177
structure. Its site was a dismal one. The surrounding
forest had been burnt ages since, for there was no char-
coal left on the stems, which were bleached and hard as
adamant. A few alders, swamp maples, and _briers
fringed the brook, the banks of which were overgrown
with tall grass, flags, and royal fern. Moose had re-
cently passed through, browsing on the juicy stems of
the red maples. It was a large house ; its diameter at
the water line nearly eighteen feet, and it was nearly
five feet in height. On the outside the sticks were
thrown somewhat loosely, but, as we unpiled them and
examined the structure more closely, the work appeared
better, the boughs laid more horizontally, and firmly
bound in with mud and grass. About two feet from the
top we unroofed the chamber, and presently disclosed the
interior arrangements.
“The chamber—there was but one—was very low,
scarcely two feet in height, though about nine feet in
diameter. It had a gentle slope upwards from the water,
the margin of which could be just seen at the edge.
There were two levels inside, one, which we will. term
the hall, a sloping mudbank on which the animal emerges
from the subaqueous tunnel and shakes himself, and the
other an elevated bed of boughs ranged round the back
of the chamber, and much in the style of a guard-bed—
2.e., the sloping wooden trestle usually found in a military
guard-room. The couch was comfortably covered with
lengths of dried grass and rasped fibres of wood, similar
to the shavings of a toy-broom. The ends of the timbers
and brushwood, which projected inwards, were smoothly
gnawed off all round. There were two entrances—the
one led into the water at the edge of the chamber and
N
178 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
let in the light, the other went down at a deeper angle
into black water. ‘The former was evidently the summer
entrance, the latter being used in winter to avoid the
ice. The interior was perfectly clean, no barked sticks
(the refuse of the food) being left about. These were all
distributed on the exterior, a fact which accounts for the
bleached appearance of many houses we have seen. In —
turning over the materials of the house, I picked up
several pieces of wood of but two or three inches in
length, which from their shortness puzzled me as to the
wherefore of so much trouble being taken by the beaver
for so (apparently) small a purpose. My Indian, how-
ever, enlightened me. ‘The side on which a young tree
is intended to fall is cut through, say two-thirds, the
_ other side one-third, and a little above. The tree slips
off the stem, but will not fall prostrate, owing to the
‘intervention of branches of adjacent trees. So the beaver
has to gnaw a little above to start it again, exactly on
the plan adopted by the lumberer in case of a catch
amongst the upper branches, when the impetus of another
slip disengages the whole tree. The occupants of the
house were out for the day, as they generally are
throughout the summer, being engaged in travelling up
and down the brooks, and cutting provisions for the
winter’s consumption. Returning to camp by another
route through the woods, we had to cross a large wild
meadow now inundated—a most disagreeable walk
through long grass, the water reaching above the knees.
At the foot, where Glode said a little sluggish brook ran
out, we found a beaver-dam in process of construction—
the work quite fresh, and accounting for the inundation
of the meadow above.”
ry
ate A Pee Pe
‘i n.2 Se ea & ——s
ie
o >) ee
LAKE DWELLERS. 179
“SEPTEMBER 5.
“Glode and I tried creeping moose, back in the woods,
this morning, but without success. No wind and an
execrable country ; all windfalls and thick woods, or else
burnt barrens. Follow fresh tracks of an enormous bull,
but are obliged to leave them for want of a breeze to
cloak our somewhat noisy advance amongst the tall
huckleberry bushes. Indians are particularly averse to
starting game when there is no chance of killing. It
scares the country unnecessarily. Disturb a bear revel-
ling amongst the berries, and hear him rush off in a
thick swamp. Lots of bear signs everywhere in these
woods. In the evening proceed up the lake with one of
the canoes. The water calm, and a most lovely sunset.
Passing a dark grove of hemlocks, we hear two young
bears calling to one another with a sort of plaintive moan.
The old ones seldom cry out, being too knowing and
ever on the watch. At the head of a grassy cove stood
a large beaver-house ; and, as it was now the time of day
for the animals to swim round and feed amongst the
yellow water-lilies, we concealed ourselves and canoe
amongst the tall grass for the purpose of watching.
But for the mosquitoes, which attacked us fiercely,
it was a most enjoyable evening. The gorgeous sunset
reflected in the lake vied with the shadows of the crim-
son: maples; and every bank of woods opposed to the
sun was suffused with a rich orange hue. The still air
bore to our ears the sound of a fall into the lake, some
three miles away, as if it were close by, and the ery of
the loon resounded in every direction. Wood-ducks and
black ducks flew past in abundance, and within easy
range of our hidden guns ;. and long diverging trails in the
N 2
180 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
mirror-like surface showed the passage of otter or musk-
rats over the lake. Presently the water broke some sixty
yards from us, and the head and back of a beaver
showed above the surface, whilst another appeared almost
simultaneously farther off. After a cautious glance
around, the animal dived again with a roll like that
of a porpoise, reappearing in a few minutes. He was
feeding on the roots of the yellow lilies (Nuphar advena).
Probably three minutes elapsed during each visit to the
bottom. Taking advantage of one of these intervals,
the Indians pushed the canoe from the concealment
of the grass, and with a few noiseless yet vigorous
strokes of the paddle made towards the spot where we
supposed the animal would rise. As the head reappeared,
-we let fly with the rifle, but missed the game, the report
echoing from island to island, and evoking most discordant
yells from the loons far and near. Of course we had
seen all that was to be seen of the animals for the
night ; ‘and so,’ as Mr. Pepys would say, ‘disconsolate
back to camp.’”
During the excursion we had opportunities of examining
many beaver-houses, placed in every variety of situation
—by the lake shore, by the edge of sluggish “ still
waters,’ on the little forest brook, or on the brink of
the rapid river. They all presented a similar appear-
ance—equally rough externally, and all similarly con-
structed inside. Neither could we observe anything
like a colony of beavers, their houses grouped in close
proximity, as so frequently noticed by travellers. The
beaver of Eastern. America appears, indeed, quite un-
sociable in comparison with his brethren of the West.
We saw none but isolated dwellings either on lake or
=
i lit 8k see IN
ee re
LAKE DWELLERS. 181
river-shore, and these placed at several hundred yards
apart from each other.
With respect to the number of animals living together
in the same house, our Indians, who had lived in this
neighbourhood and hunted beaver from their youth,
corroborated the fact, often stated by naturalists, of
three generations living together—the old pair, the last
progeny, and the next eldest (they generally have two
at a birth) ; the latter leaving every summer to set up
for themselves.
At the time of our visit the beavers were returning
from the summer excursions up and down the rivers, and
setting to work to repair damages both to houses and
dams. This work is invariably carried on during the night ;
and the following is the modus operandi :—Repairing
to the thickets and groves skirting the lake, the beaver,
squatting on his hams, rapidly gnaws through the stems
of trees of six or even twelve inches diameter, with its
powerful incisors. These are again divided, and dragged
away to the house or dam. The beaver now plunges into
the water, and brings up the mud and small stones from
the bottom to the work in progress, carrying them closely
under the chin in its fore paws. The vulgar opinion that
the broad tail of the beaver was used to plaster down the
mud in its work, has long since been pronounced as erro-_
neous. Its real use is evidently to counterpoise, by an
action against the water in an upward direction, the
tendency to sink head foremost (which the animal would
otherwise have) when propelling itself through the water
by its powerful and webbed hind feet, and at the same
time supporting the load of mud or stones in its fore
paws under the chin. Our Indians laughed at the idea
182 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
of the trowel story. That, and the assertion that the
tail is likewise used as a vehicle for materials, may be
considered as exploded notions.
The food of the beaver consists of the bark of several
varieties of willow, of poplar, and birch; they also feed
constantly durmg summer on the roots and tendrils of
the yellow pond lily (Nuphar advena). They feed in the
evening and throughout the night. For winter supplies
the saplings of the above-mentioned trees are cut into
lengths of two or three feet, and planted in the mud
outside the house. Lengths are brought in and the bark
devoured in the hall, never on the couch, and when
peeled, the sticks are towed outside and used in the spring
to repair the house.
The house is approached from the water by long
trenches, hollowed out to a considerable depth in the
bottom of the lake or brook. In these are piled their
winter stock of food, short lengths of willow and poplar,
which, if left sticking in the mud at the ordinary level of
the bottom below the surface, would become impacted in
the ice. The beaver travels a long distance from his
house in search of materials, both for building and food.
I saw the stumps of small trees, which had been felled at
least three-quarters of a mile from the house. Their
towing power in the water, and that of traction on dry
land, is astonishing. The following is rather a good
story of their coolness and enterprise, told me by a friend,
who was a witness to the fact. It occurred at a little
lake near the head waters of Roseway river. Having
constructed a raft for the purpose of poling round the
edge of the lake, to get at the houses of the beaver, which
were built in a swampy savannah otherwise inaccessible,
LAKE DWELLERS. 183
it had been left in the evening moored at the edge of the
lake nearest the camps, and about a quarter of a mile
from the nearest beaver house, the poles lying on it.
Next morning, on going down to the raft the poles were
missing, so, cutting fresh ones, he started with the Indians
towards the houses. There, to his astonishment, was one
of the poles, coolly deposited on the top of a house.
Besides the house, the beaver has another place of
residence in the summer, and of retreat in the winter,
should his house be broken into. In the neighbourhood
of the house long burrows, broad enough for the beaver
to turn in with ease, extend from ten to twenty feet in
the bank, and have their entrance at a considerable depth
below the surface of the water. To these they invariably
fly when surprised in their houses.
One of the principal causes which have so nearly led
to the extermination of the beaver, was the former demand
for the castoreum, and the discovery that it could be used
as an unfailing bait for the animal itself. This substance
is contained in two small sacs near the root of the
tail, and is of an orange colour. Now seldom em-
ployed in pharmacology for its medicinal properties
(stimulant and anti-spasmodic), being superseded by
more modern discoveries, it is still used in trapping the
animal, as the most certain bait in existence.* It is said
* Erman thus notices it in his Siberian travels :—“ There is hardly any
drug which recommends itself to man so powerfully by its impression on
the external senses as this. The Ostyaks were acquainted with its virtues
from the earliest times ; and it was related here (Obdorsk) that they keep a
supply of it in every yurt, that the women may recover their strength more
quickly after child-birth. In like manner the Kobaks and Russian traders
have exalted the beaver-stone into a panacea.
“To the sentence ‘God arose, and our enemies were scattered,’ the Sibe-
rians add, very characteristically, the apocryphal interpolation, Cand we are
free from head-ache.’ To ensure this most desirable condition, every one
184 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
to be likewise efficacious in trapping the wild cat, which
is excessively fond of the odour. Mr. Thompson, a
Canadian writer, thus speaks of it :—“A few years ago
the Indians of Canada and New Brunswick, on seeing
the steel trap so successful in catching foxes and other
animals, thought of applying it to the beaver, instead of
the awkward wooden traps they made, which often failed.
At first they were set in the landing paths of the beaver,
with about four inches of water over them, and a piece
of green aspen for a bait, that would allure it to
the trap. Various things and mixtures of ingredients
were tried without success ; but chance made some try if
the male could not be caught by adding the castoreum,
beat up with the green buds of the aspen. A piece of
. willow about eight inches in length, beat and bruised
fine, was dipped -in this mixture. It was placed at the
water edge about a foot from the steel trap, so that the
beaver should pass direct over it and be caught. ‘This
trap proved successful ; but, to the surprise of the Indians,
the females were caught as well as the males. The secret
of this bait was soon spread ; every Indian procured from
the trader four to six steel traps ; all labour was now at an
end, and the hunter moved about with pleasure, with his
traps and infallible bait of castoreum. Of the infatuation
of this animal for castoreum I saw several instances. A
trap was negligently fastened by its small chain to the
stake, to prevent the beaver taking away the trap when
caught ; it slipped, and the beaver swam away with the
trap, and it was looked upon as lost. Two nights after
has recourse, at home or on his travels, and with the firmest faith, to two
medicines, and only two, viz., beaver-stone, or beaver efflux as it is here
called, and sal-ammoniac.”
ie a 4a
' LAKE DWELLERS. 185
he was taken in a trap, with the other trap fast on his
thigh. Another time a beaver, passing over a trap to get
the castoreum, had his hind leg broken ; with his teeth
he cut the broken leg off, and went away. We concluded
that he would not come again ; but two nights afterwards
he was found fast in a trap, in every case tempted by the
castoreum. ‘The stick was always licked or sucked clean,
and it seemed to act as a soporific, as they always re-
mained more than a day without coming out of their
houses.”
And yet the beaver is an exceedingly wary animal,
possessing the keenest sense of smell. In setting the
large iron traps, without teeth, which are generally used
in Nova Scotia, and placed in the paths leading from the
house to the grove where he feeds, so careful must be the
hunter not to leave his scent on the spot, that he gene-
rally cuts down a tree and walks on its branches towards
the edge of the path, afterwards withdrawing it, and
plentifully sprinkling water around.
The presence of the beaver in his snow-covered house
is readily detected by the hunter in winter by the appear-
ance (if the dwelling is tenanted) of what is called the
“smoke hole,’ a funnel-shaped passage formed by the
warm vapour ascending from the animals beneath.
With regard to specific distinction of the beavers of
America, Europe, and Asia, the remarks of Professor
Baird, of the Smithsonian Institute, in his report of the
mammals of the Pacific railroad routes, summing up the
evidence of naturalists on the comparative anatomy of
the Castors of the Old and New Worlds, appear worthy of
note as establishing a satisfactory result.
The question has been elaborately discussed, and the
186 FOREST LIFE IN ACADTE.
results of many comparisons show considerable difference
of arrangement of bones of the skull, a slight difference
as regards size and colour, and an important one as
regards both the form of the castoreum glands, and the
composition of the castoreum itself, Professor Owen,
Bach, and others agreeing on a separation of species.*
Hence, instead of being termed Castor Fiber (Var. Ameri-
canus), the American Beaver now, (and but recently),
is designated as Castor Canadensis, so termed rather than
C. Americanus, from the prior nomenclature of Kuhl.
THE MUSK RAT (Fiber Zibethicus of Cuvier) is so
like a miniature beaver, both in conformation and habit,
that Linnzeus was induced to class it amongst the Castors.
. Like that of the latter animal its tail is flattened, though
vertically and to a much less extent, and is proportionally
longer. It is oar-shaped, whilst the form of the beaver’s
tail has been aptly compared to the tongue of a mammal.
Both animals have the same long and lustrous brown-red
hair, with a thick undercoat of soft, downy fur, which, in
the musk rat, is of a blueish gray or ashes colour, in the
beaver ferruginous. The little sedge-built water hut of
the rat is similarly constructed to the beaver’s dome
of barked sticks and brushwood, and both have burrows
in the banks of the river side as summer resorts.
The range of the musk rat throughout North America
is co-extensive with the distribution of the beaver, and it
* Dr. Brandt, who has written a most elaborate exposition on the differ-
ences of the beavers of the Old and New Worlds, states the castoreum-bag
of the American to be more elongated and thinner skinned than that of the
European ; and that in the secretion of the latter species there is a much
larger proportion of etherial oil, castorine, and castoreum-resinoid.—Vide
Baird’s Mammals of Pacific Route.
oe Sie a) nel ny, lila he oA my 4
- on eee ieuns
LAKE DWELLERS. 187
still continues plentiful in Eastern America in spite of
the immense numbers of skins exported every year. The
Indians are ever on the look-out for them on the banks
of the alluvial rivers entering the Bay of Fundy, in which
they especially abound, and in every settler’s barn may be
seen their jackets expanded to dry.
Their little flattened oval nests, composed of bents
and sedges, are of frequent occurrence by lake margins ;
and very shallow grassy ponds are sometimes seen dotted
with them quite thickly. On the muddy banks of rivers
their holes are as numerous as those of the Europedn
water-rat, the entrance just under the surface of the
water, and generally marked by a profusion of the shells
of the fresh-water mussel. They are vegetable feeders,
with, I believe, this solitary exception, though I am sorry
to have to record, from my own experience, that can-
nibalism is a not unfrequent trait when in confinement.
To the canoe-voyageur, or the fisherman on the forest-
lakes, the appearance of the musk rat, sailing round in
the calm water on the approach of sunset, when in fine
summer weather the balmy west wind almost invariably
dies away and leaves the surface with faithful reflections
of the beautiful marginal foliage of the woods, is one of
the most familiar and pleasing sights of nature. Coming
forth from their home in some shady, lily-bearing cove,
they gambol round in the open lake in widening circles,
apparently fearless of the passing canoe, now and then
diving below the surface for a few seconds, and re-
appearing with that grace and freedom from splash, on
leaving and regaining the surface, which characterise the
movements both of this animal and of the beaver.
Travelling down the Shubenacadie and other gently-
188 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
running forest-streams in day-time, I have often seen
them crossing and re-crossing the surface in the quiet
reaches through dark overhanging woods, carrying in
their mouths pieces of bracken, probably to feed on the
stem, though it seemed as if to shade themselves from
the sunbeams glancing through the foliage.
The Micmac calls this little animal “ Kewesoo,” and is |
not impartial to its flesh, which is delicate, and not unlike
that of rabbit. |
I have heard of a worthy Catholic priest who most
conveniently adopted the belief that both beaver and
musk rat were more of a fishy than a fleshy nature, and
thus mitigated the rigours of a fast-day in the backwoods
by a roasted beaver-tail or savoury stew. By the Indians
. of Nova Scotia or New Brunswick the flesh of the former
animal is rarely tasted, but to the wilder hunters of New-
foundland it is the primest of forest meats. The musk
rat will readily swim up to the call of the hunter—a sort
of plaintive squeak made by chirping with the lips applied
to the hollow of closed hands. |
The acclimatisation of both these rodents in England ©
has been frequently advocated of late. In the case of
the beaver, which in historic times was an inhabitant of
Wales and Scotland, according to Giraldus, its introdue-
tion must be at the expense of modern cultivation, from
its tendency to destroy surrounding growths of young
forest trees, and-to make ponds and swamps of lands
already drained. The musk rat, | am inclined to think,
in concurrence with Mr. Crichton’s opinion, would prove
a valuable addition to the bank fauna of sluggish English
streams.
I have thus classed together as true lake dwellers these
LAKE DWELLERS. 189
two first-cousins, as they appear to be, the beaver and
the musk rat,* yet, as the heading is somewhat fanciful,
and my object is to notice the water-frequenting mam-
malia of the woods, I will proceed to mention other
animals which prowl round the margins of lakes or
brooks, more or less taking to the water, under the sub-
divisional title of “dwellers by lake shores.”
THE OTTER of Eastern America (Lutra Canadensis),
(there is a distinct species found on the Pacific slope,)
differs from the European animal in colour, size, and con-
formation. ‘The former is much the darkest coloured, a
peculiarity attached to many North American mammals
when compared with their Old-World congeners. It is
also the largest. Taken per se, but slight importance
would attach to such variations ; and it is on the grounds
of well-ascertained osteological differences only that the
separation of species in the case of both the beaver and
the otter of America has been agreed on.
The Canadian otter measures from nose to tip of tail,
in a large specimen, between four and a-half and five feet;
its colour is a dark chestnut brown or liver, and its fur is
very close and lustrous. Under the throat and belly it is
lighter, approaching to tawny. The breeding season is in
February and early March (of wild cat and fox, ibid), and
the she otter brings forth in May a litter of three or four
pups. The clear whistle of the otter is a very common
sound to the ear of the occupant of a fishing camp, and
the Indians frequently call them up by successful imita-
tion of their note. The skin is valuable and much sought
* The musk-rat is often found as an occupant of an old beaver-house
deserted by the latter animal.
190 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
after in the manufacture of muffs, trimmings, and espe-
cially of the tall ornamental fur caps generally worn as
part of the winter costume in Canada. ‘The price of the
skin varies according to season, good ones bringing from
four to six dollars each.
They are most frequently taken in winter by traps—
dead-falls placed over little forest brooks trickling be-
tween lakes, and steel-traps submerged at a hand’s
depth close to the bank, where they come out from
under the ice to their paths and “rubs.” These re-
sorts are readily detected by the tracks and stains on
the snow, and the smooth, shining appearance of the
frozen bank where they indulge in their curious amuse-
ment of sliding down, after the manner of the pas-
time termed in Canada “trebogining.” Even in con-
finement the animal is full of sport, and gambols
like a kitten. The term “otter-rub” is applied to the
place where they enter and leave the water, from
their habit of rubbing themselves, like a dog, against a
stump or root on emerging from the water. The
otter 1s a very wary animal, and | have rarely come
upon and shot them unawares, though in cruising up and
down runs in a canoe in spring I have often seen their
victims, generally a goodly trout, deserted on hearing the
dip of our paddles, and still floundering on theice. Fresh-
water fish, including trout, perch, eels and suckers, form
their usual food; they will also eat frogs. They have
paths through the woods from lake to lake, often ex-
tending over a very considerable distance, and the
shortest cuts that could be adopted—a regular bee-line,
Their track on the snow is most singular. After a yard
or two of foot impressions there comes a long, broad trail,
~~ ha
LAKE DWELLERS. 191
as if made by a cart-wheel, where the animal must have
thrown itself on its belly and slid along the surface for
several yards.
THE FISHER, Black Cat, or Pecan (Mustela Pen-
nantii), the largest of the tree martens, a somewhat
fox-like weasel, which lives almost constantly in trees,
is another dweller by lake shores, though not in the
least aquatic in its habits, and, not being piscivorous,
quite unentitled to the name first given. Its general
colour is dark brown with uncertain shades, a dorsal
line of black, shining hair reaching from the neck to the
extremity of the tail, The hair underneath is lighter,
with several patches of white. The eye is very large,
full and expressive.
The skin possesses about the same value as that of the
otter. Squirrels, birds and their eggs, rabbits and grouse,
contribute to its support. The Indians all agree as to its
alleged habit of attacking and killing the porcupine.
“The Old Hunter” informs me that “it is a well-known
fact that the fisher has been often—very often—trapped
with its skin and flesh so filled with quills of this animal
that it has been next to an impossibility to remove the
felt from the carcass. Im my wanderings in the woods in
winter time, I have three times seen, where they have
killed porcupine, nothing but blood, mess, and quills,
denoting that Mr. F. had partaken of his victim’s flesh. I
searched, but could not find any place where portions of
the animal might have been hidden; this would have
been a circumstance of course easy to ascertain on the
snow. Now what could have become of that for-
midable fighting tail and the bones? I know that a
192 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
small dog can neither crack the latter, nor those of
the beaver.”
Mr. Andrew Downs, the well-known Nova Scotian
practical naturalist, says he has often found porecu-
pine-quills in the fisher’s stomach on skinning the
animal.
The fisher is becoming rare in the forests of Acadie.
According to Dr. Gilpin, a hundred and fifty to two hun-
dred is the usual annual yield of skins in Nova Scotia,
and these chiefly come from the Cobequid range of hills
in Cumberland.
The length of the animal, tail included, is from forty
to fifty inches, of which the tail would. be about
eighteen. ’
THE MINK (Putorius vison, Aud. and Bach.) is much
“more a water-side frequenter than the last described
animal, and indeed is quite aquatic in its habits, being
constantly seen swimming in lakes like the otter, which
it somewhat resembles in its taste for fish and frogs.
The mink has, moreover, a strong propensity to maraud
poultry yards, and is trapped by the settler, not-only in
self-defence, but also on account of the two, three, or
even five dollars obtainable for a good skin. The general
colour is dark, reddish-brown, and the fur is much used
for caps, boas and muffs. It is a rich and beautiful fur,
finer though shorter than that of the marten.
The droppings of the mink may be seen on almost
every flat rock in the forest brook, and where their runs
approach the water's edge, perhaps leading through .a gap
between thickly-growing fir stems, are placed the nume-
rous traps devised to secure the prize by settlers and
LAKE DWELLERS, 193
Indians. Fish, flesh, or fowl alike may form the bait;
a piece of gaspereau, or the liver of a rabbit or porcupine,
is very enticing. With its half-webbed feet and aquatic
habits, the American mink appears to have a well-marked
European representative in the lutreola of Finland.
CHAPTER VIII.
CAVE LODGERS.
THE BLACK BEAR.
(Ursus Americanus, Pallas.)
THIs species has a most extensive range in North ©
America, is common in all wooded districts from the
. mouths of the Mississippi to the shores of Hudson’s
Bay, from the Labrador, Newfoundland, and the islands
of the Gulf, to Vancouver, and is found wherever
northern fir-thickets or the tangled cane-brakes of more
southern regions offer him a retreat.
In the Eastern woodlands the black bear (here the
sole representative of his genus) is the only large wild
animal that becomes offensive when numerous, as he is —
still in all the Lower Provinces. He is a continual source
of anxious dread to the settler, whose cattle, obliged to
wander into the woods to seek provender, often meet
their fate at the hands of this lawless freebooter, who
will also burglariously break into the settler’s barn, and,
abstracting sheep and small cattle, drag them off into
the neighbouring woods. And he is such an exceed-
ingly cunning, wide-awake beast that it is very seldom
he can be pursued and destroyed by the bullet, or
deluded into the trap or snare; and hence he is not
z
4
§
=
CAVE LODGERS. 195
so often killed as his numbers and bad character might
warrant.
Compared with the U. Arctos—the common brown
bear of Kurope—the black bear shows many well-marked
distinctions, the grizzly (U. horribilis) claiming a much
closer relationship with the former. Professor Baird
points, however, to important dental differences between
them ; and considers the invariably broader skulls of the
brown bear conclusive as to identity. Perhaps the
greater size of the grizzly might be merely regarded as
owing to geographical variation ; but, taken in conjunc-
tion with the above and other osteological differences,
and the longer claws and shorter ears of the American,
we can only regard them as representative species.
The black bear grows to some six feet in length. from
the muzzle to the tail (about two inches long), and
stands from three to three and a half feet in height at
the shoulder. ‘The general colour is a glossy black, the
sides of the muzzle pale brown; there is no wool at the
base of the hair. Jn many specimens observed in Nova
Scotia I have seen great differences both as regards
colour of the skin and length of leg—even in breadth of
the skulls. Some animals are brown all over, others glossy
black, and wanting the cinnamon patch at the muzzle.
There are long and low bears, whereas others have short
_ bodies and great length of limb. The settlers, of course,
as they do in the case of other animals, insist upon two
species: my own conclusion is that the species is very -
susceptible of variation. They have a mythical bear
called “the ranger,’ which does not hybernate, and is
known by length of limb, and a white spot on the breast.
This latter peculiarity I have seen in several skins, but
0 2
196 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
have only noticed tracks of bears on the snow. in winter,
when a sudden and violent rainstorm, or a prolonged
thaw has flooded their den, and sent them forth to look
for fresh shelter, as they cannot endure a wet bed during
hybernation.
The bear is very particular in choosing a comfortable
dormitory for his long winter's nap. In walking through —
the woods, you will find plenty of caves—likely looking
places for a bear’s den—but “ Bruin,” or rather “ Mooin,”
as the Indians call him (a name singularly like his Euro-
pean sobriquet in sound) would not condescend to use
one in a hundred, perhaps. He must have a nice dry ©
place, so arranged that the snow will not drift m on his |
back, or water trickle through; for he grumbles terribly,
' when aroused from his lair in mid-winter, either by the
-hunter’s summons or unseasonable weather. And then
he is so cautious—the Indians say “ he think all the same
as a man”’—that he will not go into it if there are any
sticks cut in the vicinity by the hands of man, or
any recent axe-blazings on the neighbouring trees.
Another thing he cannot endure, is the presence of the
porcupine. ‘The porcupine (Erethizon dorsatus) lives in
rocky places, full of caves, and often takes possession of
large roomy dens, which poor Mooin, coming up rather
in a hurry, having stopped out blueberry picking rather
later than usual, and till all was blue, might envy, but
would not share on any account. The porcupine is not
over-cleanly in his habits, besides not being a very
pleasant bedfellow apropos of his quills; but to which
of these traits the bear takes objection I cannot say—
perhaps both. The quills are very disagreeable weapons,
and armed with a little barbed head; when they pierce
CAVE LODGERS. 197
the skin they are very difficult of extraction, and a
portion, breaking off in the wound, will traverse under
the surface, reappearing at some very distant point.
Having determined on his winter's residence, and
cleaned it out before the commencement of winter (the
extra leaves and rubbish scraped out around the entrance
being a sure sign to the hunter that the den will afford
him one skin at least, when the winter’s snow shall have
well covered the ground), Mooin, finding it very difficult
to procure a further supply of food, and being, moreover,
in a very sleepy frame of mind and body—fat as a prize
pig from recent excessive gorging on the numerous berries
of the barren, or mast under the beechwoods—turns in
for the winter ; if he has a partner, so much the better
and the warmer. He lies with his fore-arms curled
around his head and nose, which is poked in under-
neath the chest. Here he will sleep uninterruptedly
till the warm suns late in March influence his som-
niferous feelings, unless his sweet mid-winter repose
be cut short by a sharp poke in the ribs with a pole,
when he has nothing for it but to collect his almost
lost power of reflection, and crawl out of his den—
saluted, as he appears, by a heavy crushing blow over
the temples with the back of an axe, and a volley of
musket balls into his body as he reels forward, which
translates him into a longer and far different state of
sleep.
There has been great uncertainty as to what time the
female brings forth her young; some say that it is not
until she leaves her winter quarters in the early spring,
and that though the she-bear has been started from her
den in winter, and two little shapeless things found left
198 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
behind, these are so absurdly small as to appear pre-
mature. And then comes the old story of the little ones
being produced without form; and afterwards licked into
shape in the den. Even the Indians possess many dif-
ferent ideas on this subject, often affirming that the old
bear has never been shot and discovered to be with
young. Now all this is great nonsense, and as I know of ~
an instance in which a bear was shot, a few years since,
on the 14th of February, suckling two very little ones in
an open primitive den, formed merely by a sheitering
windfall, and also have consulted the testimony of tra-
vellers on the habits of hybernating bears of other —
descriptions, capping all by the reliable evidence of my ©
old Indian hunter, John Williams, I am convinced that
- the following is the true state of the case :—The she-
bear gives birth to two cubs, of very small dimensions
—not much larger than good-sized rats—about the
middle of February, in the den; and here she subsists
them, without herself obtaming anv nourishment, until
the thaws in March. A few years ago a cub was brought
to me in May by a settler, who had shot the mother and
kidnapped one of her offspring; it was a curious little ©
animal, not much larger than a retriever pup of a few
weeks old, and a strange mixture of fun and ferocity.
The settler, as [ handed him the purchase money—one
dollar—informed me that it was as playful as a kitten ;
and, having placed it on the floor, and given it a basin of
bread and milk, which it immediately upset—biting the
saucer with its teeth as though it suspected it of trying
to withhold or participate in the enjoyment of its con- ~
tents—it commenced to evince its playful disposition by
gambolling about the room, climbing the legs of tables,
CAVE LODGERS. 199
hauling off the covers with superincumbent ornaments,
and tearing sofa covers, until I was fain to end the
scene by securing the young urchin. But I got such
a bite through my trowsers that I never again admitted
him indoors. I never saw such a little demon; when
fed with a bowl of Indian meal porridge, he would bite
the rim of the bowl in his rage, growling frantically, and
then plunge his head into the mixture, the groans and
orowls still coming up in bubbles to the surface, whilst
he swallowed it like a starved pig. I afterwards gave
him to a brother officer going to England, and whether
(as is the usual fate of bears in captivity) he after-
wards kiiled a child, and met a felon’s death, I never
heard.
The growth of bears is very slow; they do not reach
their full size for four years from their birth.
On entering his den for hybernation the bear is in
prime order; the fat pervades his carcase in exactly the ©
same manner as in the case of the pig, the great bulk of
it lying, as in the flitch, along the back and on either
side ; this generally attains a thickness of four inches,
though in domesticated specimens, fed purposely by North
American hairdressers, it has reached a thickness of eight
inches. Itis by the absorption of this fat throughout
the long fast of four months that the bear is enabled to
exist. Of course evaporation is almost at a stand-still,
and a plug, called by the Norwegians the “tappen,” is
formed in the rectum, and retained until the spring.
Should this be lost prematurely, it is said that the animal
immediately becomes emaciated.
A large bear at the end of the fall will weigh five and
even six hundred pounds; this has been increased in
200 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
domesticated specimens by oatmeal feeding to over seven
hundred.
Having awoke at last, the genial warmth of a spring
day tempts him forth to try and find something to
appease the growing cravings of appetite. What is the
bill of fare ? meagre enough generally, for the snow still
covers the dead timber (where he might find colonies of
ants), the roots, and young shoots and buds; but he
bethinks himself of the cranberries in the open bogs from
which, unshaded by the branches of the dark fir-forest,
the snow has disappeared, disclosing the bright crimson
berries still clinging to their tendrils on the moss-clumps
and rendered tender and luscious by the winter's frost.
Even the rank marsh-grass forms part of his diet; and, as
. the snow disappears, he turns over the fallen timber to
look for such insects as ants or wood-lice, which might
be sheltered beneath. Although so large an animal, he
will seek his food patiently; and the prehensile nature of
his lips enables him to pick up the smallest insect or
forest berry with great dexterity. The runs between the
forest lakes also afford him early and profitable spring
fishing; and he may be seen lying on the edge of the ice,
- fishing for smelts (Osmerus), which delicate little fish
abound in the lakes, near their junction with harbours,
throughout the winter, tipping them out of the water on
to the ice behind him in a most dexterous manner with
his paws. Later in the spring he continues his fishing pro-
pensities, and makes capital hauls when the gaspereaua,
or alewives (Alosa vernalis),—a description of herring—
rush up the forest brooks in countless multitudes, carry-
ing an ample source of food to the doors of settlers living
by the banks in the remotest wilds. Works on natural
a
Saas -
ee Ee ae
a
iO Te es TO oe Le ee
CAVE LODGERS. 201
history supply abundant evidence of his general confor-
mation as a member of the plantigrade family, of the
adaptation of the broad, callous soles of his feet for walk-
ing, sitting on his haunches, or standing erect, and of
the long but not retractile claws fitted for digging, by
which he can easily ascend a tree, or split the fallen
rampike—like a Samson as he is—striking them into
its surface, and rending it in twain, in search of ants;
and what a fearful weapon the fore-hand becomes, armed
with these terrible claws, when they are sent home into
the flesh of an enemy or intended victim, whenever the
rascal takes a notion of laying aside his frugivorous
propensities to satisfy a thirst for stronger meat !
Having noticed his tastes as a herbivorous and pisci-
vorous animal, we have yet to mention this, in which,
though it has been but slightly implanted in him by
nature, he sometimes indulges, and which, once indulged
in, becomes a strong habit, and stamps him as being also
carnivorous. Poor Mooin! still unsatisfied, and _half-
starved—perhaps unsuccessful in his spring-fishing, or
in berrying—hears the distant tinkling of cattle-bells
as the animals wander through the woods from some
neighbouring settlement. Nearer and nearer they come ;
and he advances cautiously to meet them, keeping a
sharp look-out in case they might be attended by a
human being, of whom he has a most wholesome dread.
By a little careful manceuvring he drives them into a
deep, bogey swamp where he can at leisure single out
his victim, and, jumping on its back, deals it a few such
terrific blows across the back and shoulders, that the
poor animal soon succumbs, and falls an easy prey.
Stunned, torn, and bemired, it is then dragged back to
202 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
the dry slopes of the woods and devoured. ‘The settlers
say that the bear, while killing his victim (which moans
and bellows piteously all the while he is beating it to
death in the swamp), will every now and then retire
to the woods behind and listen for any approaching
sions of rescue, prior to returning and finishing his
work. This wicked appetite of his. often leads to his
destruction ; for a search being entailed for the missing
beast, and the remains found, the avenger, on the follow-
ing evening, armed with a gun, goes out to waylay the
bear, who is sure to revisit the carcase. It would never
do to remain in ambush near the spot, for the villain
always comes back on the watch, planting his feet
as cautiously as an Indian creeping on moose, with all
. his senses on the qua vive. So the man, finding by his
track in whigh direction he had retreated from the car-
case, goes back into the woods some quarter of a mile or
so, and then secretes himself; and Mooin, not suspecting
any ambuscade at this distance from the scene of his
recent feasting, comes along towards sundown, hand over
hand, and probably meets his just fate. Young moose,
too, often fall victims to the bear, though he would
never succeed in an attempt on the life of a full-grown
animal. .
The bear is conscious of being a villain, and will never
look a man in the face. This I have observed in the
case of tame animals, and marked the change of expres-
sion in their little treacherous black eye) about the size
of a small marble) just before they were about to do
something mischievous. In their quickness of temper, and
in the suddenness with which the usually perfectly dull
and unmeaning eye is lighted up with the most wicked
an a ee ey
: oo )
ee ee
ae?
CAVE LODGERS. 203
expression imaginable, immediately followed by action,
they put me much in mind of some of the monkey
tribe.
The strength of the bear is really prodigious, fully
equal to that of ten men, as was once proved by a tame
bear in this province hauling a barrel which had been
smeared with molasses, and contained a little oatmeal,
away from the united efforts of the number of men
mentioned, who held on to a rope passed round the
barrel. The bear walked away with it as easily as pos-
sible. The same bear, having nearly killed a horse, and
scalped a boy, was afterwards destroyed by his owner.
The way he tried to do for the animal was curious
enough; he approached the horse, which was loose in
the road, from behind; on its attempting to kick, the
bear caught hold of its hind legs, just above the fetlocks,
with the quickness of lightning ; the horse tried to kick
again, and the bear, with the greatest apparent ease,
shoved its hind legs under till the horse was fairly
brought on its haunches, when the rascal at once jumped
on its back, and, with one tremendous blow, buried its
powerful claws into the muscle of the shoulder, and the
horse, trembling and in a profuse perspiration, rolled
over and would have been killed if the affair had not
been witnessed and the bear at this juncture driven
away.
I have been told by an Indian of a scene he once wit-
nessed in the woods when resting on the shore of a lake
before proceeding across a portaye with his canoe. A
crashing of branches proclaimed the rapid advance of a
large animal in flight. In a few moments a fine young
moose, about half grown, dashed from the forest into the
204 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
lake, carrying a bear on its shoulders, and at once struck
out into deep water. The two were soon separated, and
the Indian at the same time launching his canoe, succeeded
in wounding the bear, which, seeing the man, had turned
back for the shore. The moose escaped on the opposite
side.
In the spring the old she bear, accompanied by her.
brace of little whining cubs, ‘is almost sure to turn on a
human being if suddenly disturbed, though, if made aware
of coming danger in time, she will always conduct them
out of the way. I have known many instances of settlers,
out trouting by the lakes near home, being chased out of
the woods and nearly run into, by the she bear in spring-
time. |
In June, likewise, in the running season, it is not safe
to be back in the woods unarmed or alone. A whole
gang will go together, making the forest resound with
their hideous snarling and loud moaning cries. Hearing
the approach of such a procession, the sojourner in camp
piles fuel on the fire, and keeps watch with loaded
gun. In old times, before they acquired the dread of
fire-arms, the Indians say these animals were much
bolder.
The bear is readily taken in a dead-fall trap with a bait
composed of almost anything: a bundle of birch-bark
tied up, and smeared over with a little honey, molasses,
or tallow, answers very well.
They travel through the woods and along the water-
side in well defined paths, which afford excellent walking
to the hunter. Bear-traps are placed at intervals in the
vicinity of their roads, and many a rascal loses his jacket
to the settlers in summer time in return for his audacious
> |
i
|
f]
AeA SE See
CAVE LODGERS. 205
raids on the cattle, to obtain which he will sometimes
break in the side of a barn.
The skin realises from four to twelve dollars, according
to size and condition.
The fall is the best time for bear hunting—“ the berry-
ing time,” as it is designated by the settlers, when he is
engaged in laying in a stock of corpulency, the material
whereof shall stick to his ribs during the long fast of the
coming winter. So intent is he now on his luscious feast
on blue and whortle berries, that he does not keep as good
a look-out for foes as at other times, and may be easily
detected in the early morning by the observant hunter,
who knows his habits and meal times, and hunts round
the leeward edges of barrens.
Later still, in a good season for beechmast, he may be
hunted in hard-wood hills. A little light snow will not
send him home to bed, whilst it materially aids the
hunter in tracking the animal. Sometimes the bear will
go aloft for the mast, and even construct a rough platform
amongst the upper branches, where he can rest without
holding on. I have seen many such apparent structures,
and could in no other way account for their appearance,
and to this I may add the testimony of the Indian.
The bear takes a deal of killing, and will run an in-
credible distance with several mortal wounds. A singular
trait, approaching almost to reflective power, is his habit
of stopping in his flight. to pick up wet moss in a swamp
wherewith to plug up the wound.
I but once surprised a bear in the wood in the act of
feeding, unconscious of my approach. My Indian saw
a portion of his black hair moving just above the side of
a large fallen tree, and in a moment we both lay prostrate.
206 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
The animal presently rose from his hitherto recumbent
position and sat up, munching his mouthful of beech-nuts
with great apparent satisfaction—a magnificent specimen,
and black as a coal.
We should now have fired, but at this juncture, as luck
would have it, a red fox, which our tracks below had
probably disturbed, raced up behind and induced us to —
look round. The bear at once sank quietly down behind
the log, and, worming along, bounded over a precipice into
a thick spruce swamp before we were aware that we were
discovered. This fox must have been his good genius.
Notwithstanding the value of the skin and the standing
grievance between the settler of the back-woods and the
black bear, the latter is apparently increasing in numbers
- in many parts of the Lower Provinces. In Nova Scotia
there is no bounty on their noses, though the wolf (a rare
visitor) is thus placed under a ban. In Anticosti bears
are exceedingly numerous, and a well-organised bear
hunt on this island would doubtless show a wonderful
return of sport; but then—the flies !
THE CANADA PORCUPINE.
' (Erethizon dorsatus, Cuvier.)
This species is common in the woodland districts of
Eastern North America, from Pennsylvania to the Arctic
Circle. West of the Missouri, according to Baird, it is
replaced by the yellow-haired porcupine (E. epixanthus).
A cave-dwelling animal, choosing its residence amongst
the dark recesses of collocated boulders, or the holes at
the roots of large trees, it spends much of its time abroad.
ae et is _. —
CAVE LODGERS. 207
It is sometimes seen sluggishly reposing in tree tops, where
it gnaws the bark of the young branches; and is often
(especially in the season of ripe berries) found in the open
barren, though never far away from its retreat. A porcu-
pine’s den is easily discovered, both by the broad trail or
path which leads to it, and by the quantity of ordure by
which the entrance is marked. From the den the paths
diverge to some favourite feeding ground—perhaps a
grove of beech, on the mast of which the animal revels in
the fall ; or, if it be winter time, to the shelter of a tall
hemlock spruce. The marks of the claws on the bark are
a ready indication of its whereabouts ; and as the Indian
hunter passes in search of larger game, he knows he is
sure of roast porcupine if venison is not procurable, and
probably tumbles him down on return to camp by a
bullet through the head.
The spines of the Canadian porcupine are about three
inches long, proceeding from a thick coat of dark brownish
hair, mixed with sooty-coloured bristles. They are largest
and most abundant over the loins, where the animal, when
brought to a stand, sets them up in a fan-like are, and
presents a most formidable array of points always turned
towards its opponent. . It endeavours at the same time to
strike with its thick muscular tail, leaving, where the
blow falls, a great number of the easily-detached quills
firmly sticking in, rooted by their barbed points.
A porcupine can gallop or shuffle along at a good pace,
and often, when surprised in the open, makes good its
retreat to its rocky den, or gains a tree, up which it
scrambles rapidly out of reach.
The spines are of a dull white colour, with dusky tips.
To the forest Indians of Acadie the porcupine is an
208 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
animal of considerable importance. It is a very common
article of food, and its quills are extensively employed by
the squaws in ornamentation. Stained most brilliantly
by dyes either obtained from the woods or purchased in
the settlements, they are worked in fanciful patterns into
the birch-bark ware (baskets, screens, or trays), which
form their staple of trade with the whites.
All the holes, hollow trees, and rocky precipices in the
neighbourhood of an encampment are continually explored
by Indian boys in search of a porcupine’s den.
The Indians commonly possess little cur dogs, which
greatly assist them in discovering the animal’s retreat ;
they will even draw them forth from their holes without —
injury to themselves—a feat only to be accomplished by
. getting hold of them underneath.
_ It is a curious fact that the settler’s dogs in general
evince a strong desire to hunt porcupine, notwithstanding
the woeful plight, about the head and forelegs, in which
they come out of the encounter, and the long period of
inflammation to which they are thereby subjected. The
Indian’s porcupine-dog, however, goes to work in a far”
more business-like manner—seldom giving his master
occasion to extract a single quill. ‘The Old Hunter”
tells me as follows :—“I once knew an instance of an
Indian’s dog, quite blind, that was particularly great on
porcupines, so much so, that if they treed, the little
animal would sit down beneath, occasionally barking, to
inform its master where lodged the ‘fretful’ one. Another
dog belonging to an Indian I knew, was not to be beaten
when once on porcupine. _ If the animal was in den, in
he went and, if possible, would haul it out by the tail.
If not strong enough, the Indian would fasten his hand-
CAVE LODGERS. 209
kerchief round his middle, and attach to it a long twisted
withe. The dog would go in, and presently, between
the two, out would come the porcupine.” |
The porcupine becomes loaded with fat in the fall by
feasting on the numerous berries found on the barrens.
The latter half of September is their running season.
The old ones are then very rank, and not fit to eat.
Their call is a plaintive whining sound, not very dis-
similar to the cry of a calf moose. At this season, when
hunting in the woods, I have frequently found old males
with bad wounds on the back-—the skin extensively
abraded by, apparently, a high fall from a tree on the
edge of a rock. My Indian says with regard to this, “he
make himself sore back, purpose so as to travel light, and
get clear of his fat.”
The female brings forth two at a birth in the den very
early in the spring.
It is a remarkable fact that, though abundant in Nova
Scotia, the porcupine is not found in the island of Cape
Breton, separated only by the Gut of Canso in places
“but a few hundred yards across. Frequent attempts have
_ indeed been made by Indians to introduce the animal in
Cape Breton by importation from the south side, but have
always ended in failure. Though the vegetable features
of the island are identical with those of Nova Scotia
proper, the porcupine will not live in the woods of the
former locality. This is*a well-ascertained fact, and no
attempt at explanation can be offered.
Again, though it is found on the Labrador, and at the
Straits of Belle Isle, the great island of Newfoundland,
which is thus separated from the mainland, contains no
porcupine.
3g
210 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
The marmot of the eastern woodlands (Arctom:
monax), and the striped ground-squirrel, or “ chip ze uk
(Tamias striatus, Baird), are more properly burrowi
animals than cave-dwellers, under which heading
class only the bear and the Porenpiney
CHAPTER IX.
ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING.
ek See
THE BROOK TROUT.
Salmo Fontinalis (Mitchell.)
Tue following description of this fish—and I believe
the latest—appears in the “Transactions of the Nova
Scotian Institute of Natural Science for 1866,” and is
due to Dr. J. Bernard Gilpin, M.D. :—
“The trout, as usually seen in the lakes about Halifax,
are in leneth from ten to eighteen inches, and weight
from half a pound to two pounds, though these measure-
ments are often exceeded or lessened. The outline of
back, starting from a rather round and blunt nose, rises
gradually to the insertion of the dorsal fin, about two-
thirds of the length of the head from the nose ; it then
gradually declines to the adipose fin, and about a length
and a half from that runs straight to form a strong base
for the tail. The breadth of the tail is about equal to
that of the head. Below, the outline runs nearly straight
from the tail to the anal fin; from thence it falls rapidly.
to form a line more or less convex (as the fish is in or
out of season), and returns to the head. The inter-max-
illary very short, the maxillary long with the free end
sharp-pointed, the posterior end of the opercle is more
P 2
212 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
angular than in the 8. Salar, the lower jaw shorter than
upper when closed, appearing longer when open. ‘The
eye large, about two diameters from tip of nose; nostrils
double, nearer the snout than the eye. Of the fins, the
dorsal has ten or eleven rays, not counting the rudimen-
tary ones, in shape irregularly rhomboid, but the free
edge rounded or curved outward: the adipose fin varies, |
some sickle-shaped with free end very long, others
having it very straight and short. The caudal fin gently
curved rather than cleft, but differing in individuals. Of
the lower fins they all have the first ray very thick and
flat, and always faced white with a black edge, the other —
rays more or less red. The head is blunt, and back
rounded when looked down upon. The teeth are upon ~
- the inter-maxillary bone, maxillary bones, the palatine,
and about nine on the tongue.. There are none so-called
vomerine teeth, though now and then we find one tooth
behind the arch of the palate, where they are sometimes
irrecularly bunched together. The colour varies; but
through all the variations there are forms of colour that,
being always persistent, must be regarded as typical.
There are always vermilion spots on the sides; there
are always other spots, sometimes decided in outline,
in others diffused into dapples, but always present. The
caudal and dorsal fins are always spotted, and of the
prevailing hue of the body. The lower fins have always
broad white edges, lined with black and coloured with
some modification of red. The chin and upper part of
the belly are always white. With these permanent mark-
ings, the body colour varies from horn colour to greenish-
grey, blue-grey, running into azure, black, and black
with warm red on the lower parts, dark green with lower
ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING. 213
parts bright yellow; and, lastly, in the case of young
fish, with vertical bands of dusky black. The spots
are very bright and distinct when in high condition or
spawning ; faint, diffused, and running into dapples
when in poor condition. In the former case all the
hues are most vivid, and heightened by profuse nacre.
In the other the spots are very pale yellowish-white,
running on the back into vermicular lines. The iris in
all is dark brown. I have seen the rose or red-coloured
ones at all times of the year. The young of the first
year are greenish horn colour, with brown vertical stripes
and bright scarlet fins and tail, already showing the
typical marks and spots, and also the vermilion specs.
Fin rays D. 13, P. 13, V. 8, A. 10; gill rays 12. Scales
very small; the dorsal has two rudimentary rays, ten or
eleven long ones, varying in different fish. ‘T'ypical
marks—axillary plate nearly obsolete, free end of maxil-
lary sharp, bars in young, vermilion specs, both young
and adult lower fins red with white and black edge.”
To the above description I would add that the nume-
rous yellow spots which prevail in every specimen of
S. Fontinalis vary from bright golden to pale primrose,
that the colour of the specs inclines more to carmine
than vermilion, and that in bright, well-conditioned fish,
the latter are surrounded by circlets of pale and purest
azure.
It will thus be seen that the American brook trout is
one of the most beautiful of fresh-water fishes. Just taken
from his element and laid on the moist moss by the edge
of the forest stream, a more captivating form can scarcely
be imagined. His sides appear as if studded with gems.
The. brilliant brown eye and bronzy gill-covers reflect
214 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
golden light; and the gradations of the dark green back,
with its fantastic labyrinthine markings, to the soft
yellow beneath, are marked by a central roseate tinge
inclining to lavender or pale mauve.
This species abounds throughout the Northern States
‘and British provinces, showing a great variety as to
form and colour (both external and of the flesh) accord- —
ing to locality. In the swampy bog-hole the trout is
black ; his flesh of a pale yellowish-white, flabby and
insipid. In low-lying forest lakes margined by swamp,
where from a rank soft bottom the water-lilies crop
up and almost conceal the surface near the shores, he
is the same coarse and spiritless fish. Worthless for —
the camp frying-pan, we leave him to the tender mercies
_ of the mink, the eel, and the leech. The bright, bold
trout of the large lakes, is a far different fish. His com-
paratively small and well-shaped head, followed by an
arched, thick shoulder, depth of body, and_ brilliant
colouring ; the spirited dash with which he seizes his prey,
and, finally, the bright salmon-pink hue of his delicate
flesh, make him an object of attraction to both sportsman
_ and epicure. Such fish we find in the clearest water,
where the shores of the lake are friged with granite
boulders, with beaches of white sand, or disintegrated
oranite, where the rush and the water-weeds are only
seen in little sheltered coves, where the face of the lake
is dotted with rocky, bush-covered islands, and where
there are great. cool depths to which he can retreat
when sickened by the heat of the surface-water at mid-
summer.
Though more a lacustrine than a river fish, seldom
attaining any size if confined to running water between
ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING. 215
the sea and impassable falls, the American trout is found
to most perfection and in greatest number in lakes which
communicate with the sea, and allow him to indulge
in his well ascertained predilection for salt, or rather
brackish tidal-water. A favourite spot is the débouchure
of a lake, where the narrowing water gradually acquires
velocity of current, and where the trout lie in skulls and
give the greatest sport to the fly-fisher.
In a recent notice of S. Fontinalis from the pen of an
observant sportsman and naturalist appearing in “ Land
and Water,” this fish is surmised to be a char. Its claim
to be a member of the Salveline group is favoured by
reference to its similar habits in visiting the tidal por-
tions of rivers on the part of the char of Norway and
Sweden, its similar deep red colouring on the belly,
and general resemblance. I am quite of “ Ubique’s”
opinion touching this point, and think the common
name of the American fish should be char. Indeed,
I find the New York char is one of the names it
already bears in-an American sporting work, though no
comparison is made. Besides its sea-going propensities,
its preferring dark, still waters, to gravelly shallow
streams, and its resplendent colours when in season, a
most important point of resemblance to the char would
seem to be the minuteness of its scales.
The American trout spawns in October and November
in shallow water, and on gravel, sand, or mud, ac-
cording to the nature of the soil at the bottom of his
domains.
In fishing for trout through the ice in winter to add
to our camp fare, I have taken them at the “run in” to
a large lake, the females full of spawn apparently ready
216 -- FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
to drop at the end of January, and all in firm condition.
This would seem a curious delay of the spawning season :
my Indian stated that trout spawn in early spring as
well as in. the fall. They congregate at the head of a
lake in large numbers in winter, and readily take bait, a
piece of pork, or a part of their own white throats, let
down on a hook through the ice. In such localities they
get a good livelihood by feeding on the caddis-worms
which crawl plentifully over the rocks under water.
TROUT FISHING.
Before the ice is fairly off the lakes—and then a
few days must be allowed for the ice-water to run off—
there is no use in attempting to use the fly for trout
fishing in rivers or runs, though eager disciples of Walton
may succeed in hauling out a few ill-fed, sickly looking
fish from spots of open water by diligently tempting with
the worm at an earlier date. Indeed trout may be taken
with bait through the ice throughout the winter, but they
prove worthless in the eating. But after the warm rain.
storms of April have performed their mission, and the
soft west wind has coursed over the surface of the water,
then may the fisher proceed to the head of the forest
lake and cast his flies over the eddying pool where the
brook enters, and where the hungry trout, aroused to
appetite, are congregated to seek for food.
“Now, when the first foul torrent of the brooks,
Swell’d with the vernal rains, is ebbed away,
And, whitening down their mossy-tinctur’d stream
Descends the billowy foam : now is the time,
While yet the dark-brown water aids the guile,
To tempt the trout.”
—— Oe ee
a. 7 ae
ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING. 217
About the 10th of May in Nova Scotia, when warm
hazy weather occurs with westerly wind, the trout in all
the lakes and streams (an enumeration of which would
be impossible from their extraordinary frequency of
occurrence in this province) are in the best mood for
taking the fly ; and, moreover, full of the energy of new
found life, which appears in these climates to influence
such animals as have been dormant during the long
winter, equally with the suddenly outbursting vegetation.
A few days later, and the great annual feast of the trout
commences—the feast of the May-fly. Emerging from
their cases all round the shores, rocky shallows, and
islands, the May-flies now cover the surface of the lakes in
multitudes, and are constantly sucked in by the greedy
trout, which leave their haunts, and disperse themselves
over the lake in search of the alighting insects. Although
the fish thus gorge themselves, and, for some days after
the flies have disappeared, are quite apathetic, they derive
much benefit in flesh and flavour therefrom. The abun-
dance of fish would scarcely be credited till one sees the
countless rises over the surface of the water constantly
recurring during the prevalence of the May-fly. “It’s
a steady boil of them,” says the ragged urchin with a
long “ troutin’-pole,” as he calls his weapon, in one hand,
and a huge cork at the end of a string with a bunch of
worms attached, in the other.
There is now no one more likely place than another
for a cast. Still sport may be had with the artificial
May-fly, especially in sheltered coves, where the fish
resort when a strong wind blows the insects off the open
water. Some anglers of the more patient type will take
fish at this time on the lake by sitting on rocks, and
218 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
gently flipping out a very fine line with minute hooks,
to which the living May-fly is attached by means of a
little adhesive fir balsam, as far as they can on the
surface of the water, where they float till some passing
fish rises and sucks in the bait. However the best sport
is to be obtained on the lakes a few days after the
“ May-fly glut,” as it is termed, is over.
The May and stone flies of America, which make their
appearance about the same time, much resemble the
ephemeral representatives of their order found in the old
country. The May-fly of the New World is, however,
different to the green drake, being of a glossy black
colour. -
With the exception of these two insects, we have no
representatives of natural flies in our American fly-books.
The scale is large and the style gaudy; and, if the bunch
of bright feathers, which sometimes falls over the head
of Salmo fontinalis, were so presented to the view of a
shy English trout, I question whether he would ever rise
to the surface again. Artificial flies are sold in most pro-
vincial towns in the Lower Provinces, and are much sought
for by the rising generation, who, however, often scorn
the store-rod, contenting themselves with a good pliable
wattle cut in situ. It is surprising to see the bunches of
trout the settlers’ “sonnies” will brmg home from some
little lake, perhaps only known to themselves, which
they may have discovered back in the woods when
hunting up the cows; and the satisfaction with which
the little ragged urchin will show you barefoot the way
to your fishing grounds, skipping over the sharp granite
rocks strewed in the path, and brushing through fir
thickets with the greatest resolution, all to become pos-
ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING. 219
sessed of a bunch of your flies and a small length of
old gut.
The cast of flies best adapted for general use for trout-
fishing in Nova Scotia consists of the red hackle or palmer,
a bright bushy scarlet fly, with perhaps a bit of gold twist
or tinsel further to enhance its charms, a brown palmer,
and a yellow-bodied fly of wool with mallard wings. The
latter wing on a body of claret wool with gold tinsel is
also excellent. Many other and gaudier flies are made
and sold to tempt the fish later on in the year: they
are quite fanciful, and resemble nothing in nature. [
cannot recommend the artificial minnow for use in this
part of the world, though trout will take them. They
are always catching on submerged rocks, and are very
troublesome in many ways. The most successful minnow
I ever used was one made on the spot by an Indian who
was with me after moose—a common large trout-hook
thickly bound round with white worsted, a piece of
tinfoil covering the under part, and a good bunch of
peacock’s herl inserted at the head, bound down along
the back, and secured at the end of the shank, leaving
a little projection to represent the tail. It was light as
a feather, and could be thrown very accurately any-
where—a great advantage when you find yourself back
in the woods and wish to pull a few trout for the camp
frying-pan from out a little pond overhung with bushes.
The fish took it most greedily.
The common trout is to be met with in every lake,
or even pond, throughout the British Provinces. One
cannot walk far through the depths of a forest district
before hearing the gurgling of a rill of water amongst
stones beneath the moss. Following the stream, one
220) FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
soon comes on a sparkling forest brook overhung by
waving fern fronds, and little pools with a bottom of
golden gravel. The trout is sure to be here, and on
your approach darts under the shelter of the projecting
rocts of the mossy bank. A little further, and a winding
lane of still water skirted by graceful maples and birches,
leads to the open expanses of the lake, where the gloom
of the heavy woods is exchanged for the clear daylight.
This is the “run in,” in local phraseology, and here the
lake trout resort as a favourite station at all times of the
year. A basket of two or three dozen of these speckled
beauties is your reward for having found your way to
these wild but enchanting spots. |
Though, as has been observed, the trout of America is
more a lake than a river fish, yet the gently running water
at the foot of a lake just before the toss and tumble of a
rapid is reached is a favourite station for trout. Such
spots are excellent for fly-fishing ; I have frequently taken
five dozen fine fish in an hour, in the Liverpool, Tangier,
and other noble rivers in Nova Scotia, from rapid water,
weighing from one to three pounds.
Towards midsummer the fish begin to refuse fly or
bait, retiring to deep pools under the shade of high rocks,
sickened apparently by the warmth of the lake water.
As, however, the woods, especially in che neighbourhood
of water, are at this season infested with mosquitoes
and black flies, a day’s “outing” by the lake or river
side becomes anything but recreative, if not unbearable.
The twinge of the almost invisible sand-fly adds, too, ©
to our torments. In Nova Scotia the savage black-
fly (Simulium molestum) disappears at the end of June,
though in New Brunswick the piscator will find these
ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING. 221
wretches lively the whole summer. ‘They attack every-
thing of life moving in. the woods, being dislodged from
every branch shaken by a passing object. No wonder
the poor moose rush into the lakes, and so bury them-
selves in the water that their ears and head are alone
seen above the surface. In Labrador the flies are yet
worse, and travelling in the interior becomes all but
impracticable during the summer.
In August the trout recover themselves under the
cooling influence of the frosty atmosphere which now
prevails at night, and will again take the fly readily, con-
tinuing to do so until quite late in the fall, and even in
the spawning season.
THE SEA TROUT.
Salmo Canadensis (Hamilton Smith).
Closely approximating to the brook trout in shape
and colouring—especially after having been some time
in fresh water—the above named species has been pro-
nounced distinct. They have so near a resemblance that
until separated by the careful comparison of Dr. Gilpin,
I always believed them to be the same fish, especially
as the brook trout as aforesaid is known to frequent
tidal waters at the head of estuaries. The following
description of the sea trout is taken from Dr. Gilpin’s
article on the Salmonide before alluded to, and is the
result of examination of several fish taken from fresh
water, and in the harbour :—
“Of those from the tide-way, length from twelve to
fourteen inches; deepest breadth, something more than
222 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
one quarter from tip of nose’to insertion of tail. The
outline rounds up rather suddenly from a small and
arched head to insertion of dorsal; slopes quickly but
gently to adipose fin; then runs straight to insertion
of caudal; tail gently curved rather than cleft; lower
line straight to anal, then falling rather rapidly to make
a very convex line for belly, and ending at the gills.
The body deeper and more compressed than in the
brook trout. The dorsal is quadrangular; the free edge
convex ; the lower fins having the first rays in each
thicker and flatter than the brook trout. The adipose
fin varies, some with very long and arched free end, in
others small and straight. The specimen from the fresh
water was very much longer and thinner, with head
proportionally larger. The colour of those from the
tide-way was more or less dark greenish blue on back
shading to ash blue and white below, lips edged with
dusky. They all had faint cream-coloured spots, both
above and below the lateral line. With one exception,
they all had vermilion specs, but some only on one side,
others two or three. In all, the head was greenish horn
colour. The colour of the fins in pectoral, ventral, and
anal, varied from pale white, bluish-white, to pale
orange, with a dusky streak on different individuals.
Dorsal dusky with faint spots, and caudal with dusky
tips—on some a little orange wash. The lower fins had
the first ray flat, and white edged with dusky. In the
specimen taken on September the 10th from the fresh
water, the blue and silver had disappeared, and dingy
ash colour had spread down below the lateral line ; the
greenish horn colour had ‘spread itself over the whole
gills except the chin, which was white. The silvery
————— ee
ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING. 223
reflections were all gone, the cream-coloured dapples
were much more decided in colour and shape, and the
vermilion specs very numerous. ‘The caudal and all the
lower fins had an orange wash, the dorsal dusky yellow
with black spots, the lower fins retaining the white flat
ray with a dusky edging, and the caudal a few spots.
The teeth of all were upon the inter-maxillary, maxil-
laries, palatine, and the tongue; none on the vomer
except now and then one tooth behind the arch of palate.
Fin rays, D. 13, P. 13, V. 8, A. 10; gill rays 12. Axil-
lary scale very small. Dorsal, with two rudimentary
rays, ten or eleven long ones, free edge convex ; first ray
of lower fins flat, scales very small, but rather larger
than those of brook trout.”
Dr. Gilpin sums up as follows on the question of its
identity with brook trout :—
“We must acknowledge it exceedingly closely allied
to Fontinalis—that it has the teeth, shape of fins, axillary
plate, tail, dapples, vermilion specs, spotted dorsal, alike;
that when it runs to fresh water it changes its colour,
and, in doing this, approximates to its red fin and dingy
green with more numerous vermilion specs, still more
closely. Whilst, on the other hand, we find it living
apart from Fontinalis, pursuing its own laws, attaining a
greater size, and returning year after year to the sea.
The Fontinalis is often found unchanged under the same
circumstances. The former fish always preserves its more
arched head, deeper and more compressed body, and
perhaps shorter fins. In giving it a specific name, there-
fore, and using the appropriate one given by Colonel
Hamilton Smith—so far as I can discover the first de-
scriber-—I think I will be borne out by all naturalists.” —
904 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
The size attained by this fish along the Atlantic coasts
rarely exceeds five pounds: from one to three pounds
is the weight of the generality of specimens. The
favourite localities for sea trout are the numerous har-
bours with which the coasts of the maritime provinces
(of Nova Scotia in particular) are frequently indented.
First seen in the early spring, they affect these harbours
throughout the summer, luxuriating on the rich food
afforded on the sand flats, or amongst the kelp shoals.
On the former localities the sand-hopper (Talitrus) seems
to be their principal food; and they pursue the shoals of
small fry which haunt the weeds, preying on the smelt
(Osmerus) on its way to the brooks, and on the caplin
(Mallotus) in the harbours of Newfoundland and Cape
- Breton, They will take an artificial fly either in the
harbour or in fresh water.
When hooked by the fly-fisherman on their first
entrance to the fresh water, they afford sport second
only to that of salmon-fishing. No more beautiful fish
ever reposed in an angler’s basket. The gameness with
which they prolong the contest—often flinging them-
selves salmon-like from the water—the flashing lights
reflected from their sides as they struggle for life on
removal of the fly from their lips, their graceful form,
and colouring so exquisitely delicate—sides molten-silver
with carmine spangles, and back of light mackerel-green
—and, lastly, the delicious flavour of their flesh when
brought to table, entitle the sea trout to a high conside-
ration and place amongst the game-fish of the provinces.
In some harbours the trout remains all the summer
months feeding on its favourite grounds, but in general
it returns to its native fresh water at distinctly marked
—
= eran
ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING. 225
_ periods, and in large detachments. In the early spring,
before the snow water has left the rivers, a few may
be taken at the head of the tide—fresh fish from the
salt water mixed with logies, or spent fish that have
passed the winter, after spawning in the lakes, under
the ice. The best run of fish occurs in June—the
midsummer or strawberry run, as it 1s locally called—the
season being indicated by the ripening of the wild straw-
berry. As with the salmon, there is a final ascent,
probably of male fish, late in the fall. The spawning
fish remain under the ice all winter in company with the
salmon, returning to sea as spent fish with the kelts
when the rivers are swelled by freshets from the melting
snow.
SEA TROUT FISHING.
A more delightful season to the sportsman than
“strawberry time” on the banks of some fine river
entering an Atlantic harbour and well known for its
sea trout fishing, can hardly be imagined. With rivers
and woods refreshed by recent rains, the former at a
perfect state of water for fishing, and the river-side
paths through the forest redolent with the aroma of the
summer flora, and the delicious perfume of heated fir
boughs, the angler’s camp is, or should be, a sylvan
abode of perfect bliss. Or even better—for then ©
we are free from the persistent attack of mosquito
or black fly —is the cabin of a comfortable yacht,
in which we shift from harbour to harbour, anchoring
near the mouth of the entering river. The flies and
sea fog are the only drawbacks to the pleasant holiday
Q
226 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
of a trouting cruise along shore. The former seldom .
venture from land (even on the forest lake they leave
the canoe or raft at a few yards’ distance from the shore)
and, if the west wind be propitious, the cold damp
fog is driven away to the north-east, following the
coast line, several miles out to sea.
Nothing can exceed the beauty of scenery in some of
the Atlantic harbours of Nova Scotia; their innumer-
able islands and heavily-wooded shores fringed with the
golden kelp, the wild undulating hills of maple rising
in the backeround, the patches of meadow, and the
neat little white shanties of the fishermen’s clearings, are
the prettiest and most common details of such pictures,
which never fade from the memory of the lover of
. nature. How easily are recalled to remembrance the
fresh clear summer mornings enjoyed on the water ;
the fir woods of the western shores bathed in the
morning sunbeams, the perfect reflections of the islands
and of the little fishing schooners, the wreaths of blue
smoke rising from their cabin stoves, and rendered
distinct by the dark fir woods behind, and the
roar of the distant rapids, where the river joins the
harbour, borne in cadence on the ear, mingled with the
cheerful sounds of awakening life from the clearings.
The bald-healed eagles (H. leucocephalus) sail majes-
tically through the air, conspicuous when seen against
the line of woods by their snow-white necks and tails.
The graceful little tern (Sterna hirundo) is incessantly
occupied, circling over the harbour, shrilly screaming,
and ever and anon dashing down upon the water to
clutch the small fry; whilst the common kingfisher, as
abundant by the sea-shore as in the interior, thinking
ai nit ihe
i Hl ih
EAM
Vi, | i
4
aul
i i)
I
HAI
| MI | INH
' | ! it | i | | Hil |
| i i i | ‘i |
|
|
|
|
|
in |
Hill
}
|
|
WH
HW \
| |
|
|
Phi
Ne
| \
"a
:
MUSQUODOBOIT HARBOUR.
ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING. 227
all fish, salt or fresh water, that come to his net, equally
good, shoots over the harbour with jerking flight, and
uttering his wild rattling cry ; now and then he makes
an impetuous downward dash, completely burying himself
beneath the surface in seizing his prey.
If there is a run of trout, and we wish to fish the
river, we go to the sea-pools, which the fish enter with the
rising tide, and where we may see their silvery sides
flashing as they gambol in the eddies under the appa-
rently delightful influence of the highly-aérated water
of a large and rapid stream, or as they rush at the
dancing deceit which we agitate over the surface of the
pool. Here, in their first resting-place on their way up
the river, they will always take the fly most readily; and
with good tackle, a propitious day, and the by no means
despicable aid of a smart hand with the landing-net, the
mossy bank soon glitters with a dozen or two of these
delicious fish.
Should they not be running, or shy of rising in the
fresh water from some of the many unaccountable
humours in which all game fish are apt to indulge,
harbour fishing is our resource, and we betake ourselves
to the edge of the sand flats where the fish, dispersed
in all directions during high water, now congregate
and lie under the weeds which fringe the edge of the
tide channels. Half-tide is the best time, and the trout
rush out from under the kelp at any gaudy fly, tempt-
ingly thrown towards the edge, with a wonderful dash,
and may be commonly taken two at a time. The trout-
beaches in Musquodoboit Harbour, lying off Big Island,
of which an engraving is given, may be a pleasant
remembrance to many who may read these lines.
Q 2
228 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
A deserted clearing, with soft grassy banks positively
reddened with wild strawberries, is a most tempting spot
for a picnic, and we go ashore with pots and pans to
bivouac on the sward. “Boiled or fried, shall be the
trout?” is the question; we try both. Perhaps the
former is the best way of cooking the delicate and
salmon-flavoured sea trout (especially the larger fish), but
in camp we generally patronise a fry, and this is our
mode of proceeding. The fire must be bright and low,
the logs burning without smoke or steam; the frying-
pan is laid on with several thick slices of the best
flavoured fat pork, and, when this is sufficiently melted
and the pan crackling hot, we put in the trout, split
and cleaned, and lay the slices of pork, now sufficiently
‘bereft of their gravy, over them. A little artistic
manoeuvring, so as to lubricate the rapidly browning
sides of the fish, and ‘they are turned so soon as the
under surface shows of a light chestnut hue. Just
before taking off, add the seasoning and a tablespoonful
of Worcester. The tin plates are now held forth to
receive the spluttering morsels canted from the pan, and
we fall back on the couch of maple boughs to eat in
_the approved style of the ancients, whilst the fresh mid-
day breeze from the Atlantic modifies the heat, and
drives away to the shelter of the surrounding bushes
the fisherman’s most uncompromising foes—the mos-
quitoes and black flies.
In Nova Scotia the best localities for pursuing this
attractive sport are the harbours to the eastward of
Halifax—Musquodoboit, Tangier, Ship, Beaver, Liscomb,
and Country harbours. In Cape Breton the beautiful
Margarie is one of the most noted streams for sea trout,
ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING. 229
and its clear water and picturesque scenery, winding
through intervale meadows dotted with groups of witch
elm, and backed by wooded hills over a thousand feet
in height, entitle it to pre-eminence amongst the rivers of
the Gulf.
Prince Edward’s Island affords some good sea-trout
fishing, and, further north, the streams of the Bay of
Chaleurs and of both shores of the St. Lawrence are so
thronged with this fish, in its season, near the head of
the tide, as seriously to impede the salmon fisher in his
nobler pursuit, taking the salmon fly with a pertina-
city against which it is useless to contend; nor is he
free from their attacks until a cascade of sufficient
dimensions has intervened between the haunts of the
two fish.
THE SALMON.
(Salmo Salar.)
The Salmon of the Atlanti¢ coasts of America not
having been as yet specifically separated from the Kuro-
pean fish, a scientific description is unnecessary, and we
pass on to note the habits of this noble game fish of our
provincial rivers. |
From the once productive rivers of the United States
-—with the exception of an occasional fish taken in the
Penobscot, or the Kennebec in Maine—the salmon has
long since been driven, the last recorded capture in the
Hudson being in the year 1840. Mr. Roosevelt, a well-
known American sportsman and author, states that
“the rivers flowing into Lake Ontario abounded with
them, even until a recent period, but the persistent
4
230 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.’
efforts at their extinction have at last prevailed ; and,
except a few stragglers, they have ceased from out our
waters.”
Cape Sable being, then, the south-easternmost point
in the salmon’s range, we first find him entering the
rivers of the south coast of Nova Scotia very early in
March, long before the snow has left the woods; thus
disproving an assertion that he will not ascend a river
till clear of snow water. At this time he meets the
spent fish, or kelts, returning from their dreary residence
under the ice in the lakes, and these gaunt, hungry fish
may be taken with most annoying frequency by the
angler for the new comers.
As a broad rule, with, however, some singular excep-
tions, the run of salmon now proceeds with tolerably
progressive regularity along the coast to the eastward
and northward, the bulk of the fish having ascended the
Nova Scotian rivers by the middle of June. The excep-
tions referred to occur in the case of a large river on the
eastern coast of Nova Scotia—the Saint Mary—and some
of the tributaries of the Bay of Fundy, in which there is
a run of fish in March, as on the south-eastern coast.
This fact militates somewhat against the theory of the
salmon migrating in winter to warmer waters to return
in a body in early spring and ascend their native rivers,
entering them progressively.
In the Bay of Chaleurs the season is somewhat more
delayed ; the fish are not fairly in the fresh water before
the middle of June, which is also the time for their
ascending the rivers of Labrador. —
At midsummer in Nova Scotia, and in the middle of
July higher up in the gulf, the grilse make their appear-
ACADIAN: FISH AND FISHING, 231
ance in fresh water in company with the sea trout.
They are locally termed jumpers, and well deserve the
title from their liveliness when hooked. With a light
rod and fine tackle they afford excellent sport, and take
a small bright, yellowish fly with great boldness.
- The American salmon spawns very late in the fall, not
before November, and for this purpose affects the same
localities as his European congener—shallow waters run-
ning over beds of sand and gravel. The spawning grounds
occur not only in the rivers, but around the large parent
lakes, at the entrance of the little brooks that feed them
from the forest, and where there are generally deltas
formed of sand, gravel, and disintegrated granite washed
down from the hills. The spent fish, as a general rule,
though some return with the last freshets of the year,
remain all winter under the ice (particularly if they have
spawned in lakes far removed from the sea), returning
in the following spring, when numbers of them are taken
by the settlers fishing for trout with worm in pools where
the runs enter the lakes. They are then as worthless and
slink as if they had but just spawned. In May the young
salmon, termed smolts, affect the brackish water at the
mouth of rivers, and fall a prey to juvenile anglers in
immense numbers—a practice most destructive to the
fisheries, as these little fish would return the same season as
orilse of three or four pounds weight. The salmon of the
Nova Scotian rivers vary in weight from seven to thirty
pounds, the latter weight being seldom attained, though
a fair proportion of fish brought to market are over
twenty pounds. Those taken in the St. Mary are a
larger description of fish than the salmon of the southern
coast. In the Bay of Chaleurs, in the Restigouche,
232 FOREST LIFE IN ACADITE.
salmon of forty and fifty pounds are still taken; in
former years, sixty pounds and over was not an uncom-
mon weight. The salmon of the Labrador rivers are
not remarkable for size : the average weight of two hun-
dred fish taken with the fly in the river St. John in
July, 1863, was ten pounds, the largest being twenty-
three ; and the largest salmon ever taken by the rod on
this coast weighed forty pounds.
The average weight of the grilse taken in Nova Scotia
and the Gulf appears to be four pounds. Fish of seven
or eight pounds which I have taken in American rivers
are, to my thinking, salmon of another year’s growth,
and present an appreciable difference of form to the slim
and graceful grilt. In the latter part of November, the
time when the salmon in the fresh water are in the act
of spawning, a run of fish occurs along the coast of Nova
Scotia. They are taken at sea by nets off the headlands,
and are, as affirmed by the fishermen, proceeding to the
southward. Brought to market, they are found to be
nearly all females, in prime condition, with the ova
very small and in an undeveloped state, similar to that
contained in a fish on its first entrance into fresh water.
Where can these salmon be going at the time when the
rest of their species are busily engaged in reproduction ?
Another of- the many mysteries attached to the natural
history of this noble fish! In fresh running water the
salmon takes the artificial fly or minnow, whether from
hunger or offence it does not clearly appear; in salt
water he is not unfrequently taken on the coast of Nova
Scotia by bait-fishing at some distance from shore, and
in sixty or seventy fathoms water. The caplin, smelt,
and sand-eel, contribute to his food.
i
ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING. 233
Dr. Gilpin, of Nova Scotia, speaking of many instances
of marvellous captures of salmon, tells the following
authentic story; the occurrence happened in his own
time and neighbourhood—Annapolis :—
“Mr. Baillie, grandson of the ‘ Old Frontier Mis-
sionary, was fishing the General’s Bridge river up stream
for trout, standing above his knees in water, with an old
negro named Peter Prince at his elbow. In the very act
of casting a trout fly he saw, as is very usual for them, a
large salmon lingering in a deep hole a few yards from
him. The sun favoured him, throwing his shadow behind.
To remain motionless, to pull out a spare hook and pen-
knife, and with a bit of his old hat and some of the grey
old negro’s wool to make a salmon fly then and there, he
and the negro standing in the running stream like statues,
and presently to land a fine salmon, was the work of but
afew moments. This fly must have been the original of
>9)
Norris’s killing ‘ silver grey.
THE RIVERS OF NOVA SCOTIA AND THE
GULF.
Rivers and streams of varying dimensions, but nearly
all accessible to salmon, succeed each other with wonder-
ful frequency throughout the whole Atlantic Sea-board. of
Nova Scotia. In former years, when they were all open
to the ascent of migratory fish, the amount of piscine
wealth represented by them was incalculable. The
salmon literally swarmed along the coast. Their only
enemy was the spear of the native Indian; and the
earlier annals of the province show the prevalence of a
234 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
custom with regard to the hiring of labourers similar to
that once existing in some parts of England—a stipulation
that not more than a certain proportion of salmon should
enter into their diet. Now, the salmon having passed the
ordeal of bag-nets, with which the shores of the long
harbours are studded, and arrived in the fresh water,
vainly loiters in the pool below the monstrous wooden
structure called a mill-dam, which effectively debars his
progress to his ancestors’ domains in the parent lakes,
and before long falls a prey to the spear or scoop-net of
the miller. From wretchedly inefficient legislation the
salmon of Nova Scotia is on the verge of extinction,
with the gaspereaux and other migratory fish, which
once rendered the immense extent of fresh water of
.this country a source of wealth to the province and of
incalculable benefit to the poor settler of the backwoods,
whose barrels of pickled fish were his pret stand-by for
winter consumption.
One of the noblest streams of the Nova Scotian
coast is the Liverpool river, in Queen’s County, which
connects with the largest sheet of fresh water in the
province, Lake Rossignol, whence streams and brooks
innumerable extend in all directions through the wild
interior, nearly crossing to the Bay of Fundy. All
these once fruitful waters are now a barren waste. The
salmon and gaspereaux are debarred from ascent at the
head of the tide, where a series of utterly impracti-
cable mill-dams oppose their progress to their spawning-
grounds. A pitiful half dozen barrels of salmon taken
at the’ mouth is now shown against a former yearly
take of two thousand.
A few miles to the eastward we come to the Port
ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING. 235
Medway river, nearly as large as the preceding, which,
not being so completely closed against the salmon, still
affords good sport in the beginning of the season, in
April and May. This is the furthest river westwardly
from the capital of the province—Halifax—to which the
attention of the fly-fisher is directed. There are some
excellent pools near the sea, and at its outlet from the
lakes, twenty miles above. The fish are large, and have
been taken with the fly in the latter part of March.
The logs going down the stream are, however, a great
hindrance to fishing.
Proceeding to the eastward, the next noticeable
salmon river is the La Have, the scenery on which is
of the most picturesque description. ‘There are some
excellent pools below the first falls. The run of fish is
rather later than at Port Medway, or at Gold River,
which is further east. On the 4th of May, when excel-
lent sport was being obtained in these waters, I have
found no salmon running in the La Have. About the
10th of May appears to be the beginning of its
season.
We next come to Mahone Bay, an expansive indenta-
tion of the coast, studded with islands, noted for its
charms of scenery, and likewise commendable to the
visitor in search of salmon-fishing. About six miles
west of the little town of Chester, which stands at its
head, is the mouth of Gold River. Until very re-
cently this was the favourite resort of sportsmen on
the western shore. Its well-defined pools and easy stands
for casting added to its inducements; and a throng of fish
ascended it from the middle of April to the same time
in May. ‘The increase of sporting propensities amongst
235 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
the rising generation of the neighbouring villages proves
of late years a great drawback to the chances of the
visitor. The pools are continually occupied by clumsy
and undiscerning loafers, who infest the river to the
detriment of sport, and do not scruple to come alongside
and literally throw across your line. Though dear old
Isaac might not possibly object to rival floats a yard
apart, another salmon-fly careering in the same pool is
not to be endured, and of course spoils sport. Still,
however, without such interruptions, fair fishing may be
obtained here, and a dozen fish of ten to twenty pounds
taken by a rod on a good day. Excessive netting in
the salt water is, however, fast destroying all prospects of
sport here as elsewhere.
There are two fair sized salmon rivers entering the
next harbour, Margaret’s Bay, which, being the nearest
to the capital of the province, are over-fished. With the
exception of a pretty little stream, called the Nine-mile
River, which is recovering itself under the protection of
the Game and Fish Preservation Society, these conclude
the list of the western-shore rivers of Nova Scotia.
_ The fishing along this shore is quite easy of access by
the mail-coach from Halifax, which jolts somewhat
roughly three times a week over the rocks and fir-
pole bridges of the shore-road through pretty scenery,
frequently emerging from the woods, and skirting the
bright dancing waters of Margaret's Bay and Chester
Basin. The woodland part of a journey in Nova Scotia
is dreary enough; the dense thickets of firs on either side
being only enlivened by an occasional clearing with its
melancholy tenement and crazy wooden out-buildings, and
by the tall unbarked spruce-poles stuck in a swamp or
a CE Nite
ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING. 237
held up by piles of rocks at their base, supporting the
single wire along which messages are conveyed through
the province touching the latest prices afloat of mackerel,
cod-fish, or salt, on the magnetic system of Morse.
Indian guides to the pools, who are adepts at camp-
keeping, canoeing, and gaffing the fish for you, as well as
at: doing a little stroke of business for themselves, when
opportunities occur, with the forbidden and murderous
spear, reside at the mouths of most of thesé rivers. Their
usual charge, as for hunting in the woods, is a dollar per
diem.
The flies for the western rivers of Nova Scotia are of
a larger make than those used in New Brunswick and
Canada, owing to the turbidity of the water at the season
when the best fishing is to be obtained. They may be pro-
cured in several stores in Halifax, where one Connell ties
them in a superior style, and will forward them to order
anywhere in the provinces orin Canada. A claret-bodied
(pig’s wool or mohair) with a dark mixed wing is good
for the La Have. Green and grey are good colours for
Gold River. With the grey body silver tinsel should
be used, and wood-duck introduced into the wing. An
olive body is also good. There is no feather that sets off
a wing better than wood-duck. It is im my estimation
more tempting to fish than the golden pheasant tippet
feather. Its broad bars of rich velvety black and purest
white give a peculiarly attractive and soft moth-like
appearance to the wing.
The harbour of Halifax, nearly twelve miles in
length, has but one stream, and that of inconsiderable
dimensions, emptying into it. The little Sackville river
was, however, once a stream affording capital sport at
238 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE.
Midsummer, its season being announced, as the old
fisherman who lived on it and by it, generally known
as “Old Hopewell,” told me, by the arrival of the fire-
flies. He has taken nineteen salmon, of from eight to
eighteen pounds weight, in one morning with the fly.
It offers no sport to speak of now; the saw mills and —
their obstructive dams have quite cut off the fish from
their spawning grounds.
To the eastward, between Halifax and Cape Canseau,
occurs a succession of fine rivers, running through the
most extensive forest district in the province. The
salmon rivers of note are the Musquodoboit, Tangier
river, the Sheet Harbour rivers, and the St. Mary’s.
There are no important settlements on the sea-coast,
‘which is very wild and rugged to the east of Halifax,
and consequently they are less looked after and more
poached. Formerly they teemed with salmon. Besides
the mill-dams, they are netted right across, and the pools
are swept and torched without mercy by settlers and
Indians. The St. Mary’s is the noblest and most beau-
tiful river in Nova Scotia, and its salmon are the largest.
The nets overlap one another from either shore through-
out the long reaches of intervale and wild meadow,
dotted with groups of elm, which constitute its noted
scenic charms, and the lumbermen vie with the Indians
in skill in their nightly spearing expeditions by the light
of blazing birch-bark torches. |
There are many other fine rivers besides those men-
tioned discharging into the Atlantic, which the salmon
has long ceased to frequent, being completely shut out,
and which would swell the dreary record of the ruin of the
inland fisheries of Nova Scotia. In these waters, at a
ay
ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING. 239
distance from the capital, “ Halifax law,” as the settlers
will tell you, is “no account.” The spirit of wanton
extermination is rife ; and, as it has been well remarked,
it really seems as though the man would be loudly
applauded who was discovered to have killed the last
salmon.
Salmon are abundant in the Bay of Fundy, which
washes a large portion of Nova Scotia, but its rivers
are generally ill adapted for sport. Running through
flat alluvial lands, and turbid with the red mud, or
rather, fine sand, of the Bay shores, they are generally
characterised by an absence of good stands and salmon
pools. The Annapolis river was once famous for
salmon fishing. On its tributary, the Nictaux, twenty
or thirty might be taken with the fly im an after-
noon; and the Gaspereau, a very picturesque stream
entering the Basin of Minas at Grand Pré, the once
happy valley of the French Acadians, still affords fair
sport.
We will now turn to the rivers of the Gulf which
enter it from the mainland on the shores of New Bruns-
wick, Lower Canada, and Labrador, commencing with
those of the former province.
Proceeding along the eastern shore of New Brunswick
from its junction with Nova Scotia, we pass several fine
streams with picturesque scenery and strange Indian
names, which, once teeming with fish, now scarcely afford
the resident settler an annual taste of the flesh of salmon.
The Miramichi, however, arrests our attention as being
a noble river; its yield and exportation of salmon is
still very large. Winding sluggishly through a beautiful
and highly cultivated valley for nearly one hundred
240 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE. ©
miles from the Atlantic, the first rapids and pools where
fly-fishing may be practised occur in the vicinity of
Boiestown ; here the sport afforded, in a good season, is
little inferior to that which may be cbtained on the
Nepisiguit. One of its branches, also, the north-west
Miramichi, is worth a visit; and I have known some
excellent sport obtained on it in passing through to the ~
Nepisiguit, from which river the water communication
for a canoe is interrupted but by a short portage through
the forest. |
It is, however, on entering the southern expanses of
the beautiful Bay of Chaleurs that we first find the
paradise of the salmon-fisher; and here still, despite
of many foes—innumerable stake-nets which debar his
. entrance, the sweeping seine in the fresh water, the torch
and spear of the Indian tribes, and lastly, and perhaps
the least destructive agent, the tackle of the fly-fisher-
man—the bright foamy waters of the Nepisiguit, the
Restigouche, the Metapediac, and many others, repay the
visitor and sportsman, whence or how farsoever he may
have come, by the sport which they afford, and by the
wild scenery which surrounds their long course through
the forests of New Brunswick. |
And, first, of the Nepisiguit. This now famous river,
which of late years has attracted from their homes
many visitors, both English and American, to spend a
few weeks in fishing and pleasantly camping-out on its
banks, discharges its waters into the Baie des Chaleurs
at Bathurst, a small neat town, easily accessible from
either Halifax, St. John, or Quebec, and by various
modes of conveyance—coach, rail, and steamboat. Rising
in the centre of northern New Brunswick, in an elevated