they differ in size; but that may be put down to the difference in quantity and quality of their food. In Nova Scotia moose are plentiful. This is partly owing to the protection afforded them in the breeding season by the Legislature of that province; but partly and chiefly owing to the fact that the snow is rarely deep enough for the settlers and Indians to run them down on snow shoes, and butcher them, as they do in New Brunswick. Still, hunting moose is rare good sport, and requires the greatest skill in the hunter; but, as the animals shed their magnificent antlers in the fall, the sport in winter is robbed of half its charms. As I said elsewhere, they are unable to travel fast through the deep snow; and in winter, either singly or in parties of two or three, they choose a hill or tract far back in the forest, where their favourite browse-moosewood and maple-abounds. In this space of ten or twenty acres, called a moose-yard, they remain all winter, unless disturbed. In New Brunswick and Lower Canada, during the month of March, when the snow is deep and crusted-which serves the double purpose of making the snow-shoeing good and of cutting the moose's shins-hundreds of moose are annually butchered for the sake of the hides, value $5 each, the more valuable carcases being left to rot, and poison the woods with their stench. The cows, being heavy in calf at this season, are the more easily slaughtered. This is a shame. Animal life is not so abundant in these woods that it should be thus recklessly destroyed. There is some act for their protection, I believe; but forty acts passed by the assembled wisdom of the provinces in the great city of Ottawa, each one of them as long as the River St. Lawrence, are of no manner of use unless they are enforced. No attempt is made to check the trade in moose hides. In my opinion, moose are useful for three purposes-three reasons for their protection. First of all, as an article of food; secondly, as affording an exciting and health-giving sport, when hunted at the proper seasons; and thirdly, as a bait to strangers, who spend more or less money in a country where money is much needed, and carry away with them favourable impressions. But surely, even if the moose is of no use as an ornament to the woods of Canada, and a guest whose keep costs nothing, he should not be utterly exterminated by the Canadians. An old Micmac spun me a quaint yarn anent the moose which I will retail, not making myself responsible for its veracity. "Some sixty years ago," he said, "the Milicetes made a raid upon the moose, as the white men are doing now. The Micmacs sent an ambassador to expostulate, and request them to kill 'em more easy. The only reply the Milicetes made to this polite request was to seize the ambassador, and roast him. When the sad news reached the Micmacs, their sage prophesied that the moose would altogether leave a country where such bad people lived. Accordingly, in the following year, moose did leave New Brunswick: many were tracked to the seaside, and their tracks lost in the ocean. The medicine-man further prophesied that no man then living should ever see a moose again; but that the succeeding generation would be more fortunate. Accordingly, about twenty-five years ago two moose were perceived one fine morning swimming towards the shore. One of them was killed, and nothing but seaweed was found inside it. Sartin, mister," concluded my old informant, "moose not all the same as other beast." Nothing strikes a person travelling in the woods for the first time in the depth of winter so much as the extreme-I may say solemn-silence which prevails. No sound of any sort strikes the ear, save at intervals the cracking of the trees, caused by the freezing of the sap. Nor does any track or sign indicate to the casual observer the existence of any animal life. This is explained by the fact that in very cold weather no animals but the cariboo and the loupcervier (Felis Canadensis) move about much. Even the few birds that winter in the country remain in sheltered places, in hollow trees, or under the snow. Several quadrupeds that do not hybernate regularly, like the bear, provide themselves with little homes, in hollow trees and elsewhere, and stores of provisions. Among these are the common red squirrel (Sciurus Hudsonius), the flying squirrel (Pteromys sabrinius), the wood-chuck (Arctomys monax), the skunk (Mephitis Americana), and two or three sorts of mice. The sable (Mustela martes), and the black cat (M. Canadensis), in districts where they abound, are rarely seen by the hunter. An old trapper assured me that, in the whole course of his experience, he had seen but one sable alive. The rabbit, or rather the staggering under a load of meat. I had the curiosity to follow him, when I observed that he took his load to a stump some thirty yards off, and, contrary to their usual custom, commenced to share his booty with a comrade, whom I recognized as my old friend the cripple. I took charge of the poor fellow, and fed him during his convalescence; and have thought better of the them often take possession of a camp, and drive away intruders; when one is killed, a fresh one arriving and taking his place. On a subsequent occasion, I observed the treatment an intruder met with at the hands (bills) of the two friendly meat-birds mentioned above. He came one afternoon, very hungry, for a feed of cariboo. My camp birds, in a state of repletion, were half asleep; but hardly had the interloper dug his bill into the meat, when they both went at him, tooth and nail. I never saw a bird get such a mauling; the old cripple putting in some ugly ones from behind. How the wool did fly! Soon they were out of sight; but the screaming lasted half an hour, and judging by their pleased expressions when they returned, I think they killed him. hare (Lepus A.), is rarely seen, thanks to the snow-white jacket given it by nature for its protection in winter. Neither is the ermine weasel (Mustela erminea), for the same reason. The ruffed grouse (T. umbellus), and the Canadian grouse (T. Canadensis), live aloft in the trees, or when they do come down it is merely to take a header into the snow. There is but one exception, the meat-bird, or moose-bird (Garrulus Cana-meat-bird ever since. Two or three of densis). No amount of cold keeps this most impudent of birds at home when meat is to be got. So far from being afraid of man, he follows him through the woods, enters his camp through the smoke-hole in the roof, and almost takes the bit out of his mouth. I have killed one, "pour encourager les autres." His comrades stolidly looked on, and by and by picked his bones. They eat anything. Meat, bread, provisions of any kind-nothing comes amiss to the robbers; soap they are very partial to. When the hunter stops for dinner, and lights his fire, no bird is to be seen or heard; hardly, however, is the frying-pan on the fire, when moose-bird makes his appearance, and, chuckling with joy, perches on a bough within five or six feet of the pan. They eat the baits out of the hunter's traps, and the trapped animals. They flock in numbers to districts where moose have been slaughtered, and eat and fight the livelong day. They make several different sounds, each one more discordant than the other. Late in the fall, when trout go to shallow water to spawn, moose-bird takes a wrinkle from the kingfisher, and feasts on small trout. I have seen a dog feeding on one end of a piece of meat, a moose-bird on the other. It is generally supposed that birds cannot smell, but the moose-bird must be an exception, for in thick woods he cannot see; and how then does he find meat so quickly? Whilst on the one hand they have, for their size, such a vast stowage for provisions, on the other hand they can fast for extraordinarily long periods. They fight like tigers. A servant of mine caught three in steel traps, and cruelly put them all together in a cage, where, to use his own expression, they "fit like bull dogs." I told him to kill them at once, as they were all mutilated; one fellow, however, escaped amidst a shower of missiles, hopping away on one leg and one wing. I thought nothing more of the circumstance till about a week afterwards, when I observed another of these birds Occasionally, even in this Arctic winter, we have a mild day or two, and then the woods present a very different aspect. The squirrels chatter, and the woodpeckers carpenter away at the trees. An occasional partridge, so called, may now be seen, or the track of a porcupine (Hystrix pilosus) dragging himself through the snow. The beaver leaves his lodge, and comes out for a bite of fresh bark. Even the bear is sometimes tempted out of his den. The pine grosbeak (Pinicola Canadensis) and the crossbill (Loxia curvirostra) show themselves round the camp; the chickadee (Parus atricapillus) adds his little note in approbation of the change; and even the snow-bunting (Plectrophanes nivalis), that hardiest of the feathered tribe, shows its appreciation of a mild day by leaving the forest and flocking to the farmyard. But the bird of all others that dislikes the cold is the cock of the woods, or great red-headed woodpecker (Picus pileatus). He scents the approach of mild weather; and when, on a cold winter's day, you hear him giving tongue-chuckling away lustily on the very summit of a giant rampike-no matter how fine and bright the day, be sure that tomorrow it will rain. Forest life has so many charms for me, that I am apt to forget that others may not be equally enamoured of it, and so dose my listeners ad nauseam with hunting and trapping; but I would not have them for a moment to understand that these are the only winter amusements of the Blue Nosesfar from it. In the cities of St. John, Halifax, Charlottetown, and Fredericton, dances, dinners, and the other sociable resources of civilization pleasantly help to while away the leisure hour; and hospitality is at its height in the long nights of winter. Of all the institutions of the country, commend me to a sleighing party. The horses are fast, the roads are good, the bells ring merrily, the air is bracing; and, nestled in warm robes, nowhere do the fair ones look more blooming. In fact, no one who has not tried it can have any idea of the pleasures of a sleigh drive with a Blue Nose girl. Another amusement, "trabogening," must not be forgotten. For this, four items are requisite -viz., a trabogen, a steep hill, a young gentleman, and a young lady. Contrary to etiquette in other matters, the gentleman sits with his back to the lady, in the front or bow of the trabogen, holding on with his hands and steering with his feet. Now, as he cannot hold on to the vehicle and hold his partner too, why she is compelled to hold on to him. The pace is great, and the sensation curious but pleasant; but, like every other pleasure, it has its drawback-in this case literally. In small towns, isolated, or at least partially isolated, during many months of the year from the outside of the world, where wealth or perhaps I should say competence -and also education are not very unequally divided, one might suppose that, if there is any place in the world where society exists in a tolerably homogeneous state, it would be here. But, no-we have not found Utopia yet. We have our aristocracy and our democracy, our first families and our shoddy. Every grade and every clique that finds a place in the vast societies of London or at New York has a corresponding one here. In large communities, these cliques, though imposing from their very size and weight, are of little consequence to the individual; in smaller ones, though quite as natural, they become deplorable and ridiculous. If my existence be utterly ignored by "my Lord," what care I? My friends are Smith, and Brown, and Jones, equally well edu cated, and equally good fellows with the peer. If my wife has not the honour of being bidden to Mrs. Shoddy's "at homes," what need she care? Mesdames Smith, Brown, and Jones, and fifty other equally refined and equally charming ladies, are in the same boat, and can have their own little amusements. But, on the other hand, in communities which can be counted by tens instead of by hundreds, or even thousands, it does seem a pity that people should not sink their wretched little prejudices, and pull together. It seems a pity that I should not know my next-door neighbour, simply because "our families don't visit." My father was a tailor, a most respectable man, who managed to bring up a large family, and leave them a few hundred dollars each at his death. Smith's father, his contemporary, was a grocer; but Smith junior married a judge's daughter, and got the crest too, somehow or another-a demi-lion rampant. - Smith, good fellow, rather likes me, I believe, than otherwise anyhow, he slapped me on the back the other night at a fire, and we had a drink together; but then, socially the Smiths are a cut above us. They drive a pony phaeton, with a boy in buttons, and are asked to Government house: we take the air in a buggy, unadorned with heraldic devices. Politics, too, run high, and are a fruitful source of strife. The election of a mayor causes more excitement within our little world than the election of a President or the overthrow of a Ministry without. If I live a hundred years, I never shall forget when young Tomkins was turned out of his office-assistant clerk in the Post-office, at a salary of 150 dollars-by the new Government just come into power, to make room for young Brown, my wife's second cousin. Society was shaken from its very foundation. This happened three years ago; and old Tomkins glares at me to this day. Fortunately, the duello is out of date; and for the rest, I could punch his head, and he knows it. When the navigation is open, the travelling is very good in the provinces; but hitherto it has not been so good in winter. Now, however, that railways are opening up the country, we shall soon have direct communication between Halifax, St. John, and Quebec, and also a connection with the United States railway lines. I had occasion to travel from St. John, New Brunswick, to Charlottetown, Prince Edward |