in quest of game, hung the birds, as he shot them, to the branch of a tree, or deposited them on a rock; but, on collecting the produce of his chase in the evening, he found that the gulls had left him little besides the bones to carry. If by chance a goose, when shot, fell into the river, a gull speedily took his stand on the carcase, and proceeded to tear out the entrails, and devour the flesh, as he floated with it down the current. Even the raven kept aloof, when a gull had taken possession of a bird. The harlequin duck (Clangula histrionica) also frequents Bear Lake River; but is comparatively rare in other districts, and is not easy of approach. It congregates in small flocks, which, lighting at the head of a rapid, suffer themselves to glide down with the stream, fishing in the eddies as they go. A sportsman, by secreting himself among the bushes on the strand, conveniently near to an eddy, may, if he has patience to wait, be sure of obtaining a shot. In this way I procured specimens. The osprey and white-headed eagle both build their nests on the banks of Bear Lake River, and the golden-winged woodpecker migrates thus far north, and perhaps further, though it did not come under our observation in a higher latitude. A small frog (Bufo americanus) is common in every pond, and Mr. Bell informed me that he had seen it on Peel River, which is the most northern locality I 1818. FROGS. 203 can name for any American reptile.* A frog resembling it, but perhaps of a different species, abounds on the Saskatchewan, and its cry of love in early spring so much resembles the quack of a duck, that while yet a novice in the sounds of the country, it led me more than once to beat round a small lake in quest of ducks that I thought were marvellously well concealed among the grass. On Bear Lake River, the frogs make the marshes vocal about the beginning of June. Throughout Rupert's Land, they come abroad immediately after the snow has melted. In the swampy district between Lake Superior and Rainy Lake, they are particularly noisy. While we were descending the Savannah River on the 20th of May, we were exposed to the incessant noise of one called by the voyagers le crapaud†, whose cry has an evident affi * See note p. 204. †This is probably the Bufo americanus, also. Mr. Gray of the British Museum, who examined my specimens, found old and young examples of B. americanus from Lake Winipeg, and young ones from Great Bear Lake. There were also many specimens of Rana sylvatica (le grenouille) from the former locality; some of Hyla versicolor of Le Conte, or H. verrucosa of Daudin; and a solitary individual of a Hylodes, which he thinks may be new. It resembles, he says, "H. maculatus of Agassiz (Lake Superior, p. 378. pl. vi. f. 1–3.), but differs in colour. The back is grey, with three cylindrical dark bands, interrupted and diverging from each other on the hind part of the back. The side of the face has a black streak, which is continued over the base of the fore-arm, and along the side of the body, gradually descending towards the belly. The toes are nity with the brekekex of Asia Minor, and closely resembles the braying sound of a watchman's rattle; but a hundred of the latter, sprung in a circle, would not have equalled the voices of the frogs that we heard at one time. A smaller species, called la grenouille, inhabits the same places, and has a shrill, less unpleasing note than the other, yet which was, nevertheless, tiresome from its monotony. As a contribution to what is known of the geographical distribution of reptiles, on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, frogs may be set down as attaining the 68th parallel of latitude; snakes, as reaching the 56th; and tortoises, as disappearing beyond the 51st, at the south end of Lake Winipeg. There the Emys geographica of Le Sueur, named asate by the Chippeways, occurs; and also one with a flexible neck, called by the same people miskinnah, which is probably the snapping turtle.* free and cylindrical, that is, scarcely tapering, and truncate at the end." (I. E. Gray in let.) By the same post which brought me a proof of this sheet, I had a letter from Mr. Murray, dated on the River Yukon, in which he informs me that " a frog" and " a grass snake" had been killed near his encampment, and that another snake had been killed on the north bend of the Porcupine River, far within the arctic circle. THE RAPID. RAMPARTS.-HARE INDIANS. -FORT GOOD HOPE.-HARES. -KUTCHIN. SACRED WE continued to descend the river until 7 in the evening, when we encamped for the night, as I did not consider it to be safe to drift here, there not being one person in the boats who had ever been in this river before, but myself, and I could not trust to my recollections of the best channels after the lapse of so many years since my former visit. About twelve or fourteen miles below the influx of Great Bear River, the channel of the Mackenzie approaches the spur on its eastern bank, and flows parallel to it for some distance. At the spot where we encamped the beach was formed of displaced bituminous shale with imbedded granite boulders, both evidently derived from the ruined bank, a section of which showed layers of gravel consisting of rolled pieces of shale and a few lime stone pebbles, alternating with sand and coarser rolled pieces of limestone. This seemed to be a tertiary deposit formed out of the subjacent beds, but not by the river flowing at its present level. In the course of the day's voyage we noticed a peregrine falcon's nest, placed on the cliff of a sandstone rock. This falcon is not rare throughout the Mackenzie, where it preys on the passenger pigeons and smaller birds. Mr. M'Pherson related to me one of its feats, which he witnessed some years previously as he was ascending the river. A white owl (Stryx nyctea), in flying over a cliff, seized and carried off an unfledged peregrine in its claws, and, crossing to the opposite beach, lighted to devour it. The parent bird followed, screaming loudly, and, stooping with extreme rapidity, killed the owl by a single blow, after which it flew quickly back to its nest. On coming to the spot, Mr. M'Pherson picked up the owl, but, though he examined it narrowly, he could not detect in what part the deathblow had been received; nor could he, from the distance, perceive whether the peregrine struck it with wing or claws. July 27th.-Embarking at 3 this morning, we continued our voyage down the river, and for upwards of twenty miles pursued a course nearly parallel to the spur which the Mackenzie crosses at the influx of Great Bear River. In latitude |