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Finding nothing new, though the sandpipers and yellowlegs were still present, with a very handsome little blue heron and plenty of blackbirds, I took the road again and went further, and an hour or two afterward, on getting back to the same place, was overtaken again by the horseman. He pulled up his horse and bade me good-afternoon.
I did not know that there were so many Bear and Beaver left; I never was so much impressed by the inspiring raucous clamour of the Cranes, the continual spatter of Ducks, the cries of Gulls and Yellowlegs. Hour after hour we paddled down that stately river adding our 3 1/2 miles to its 1 mile speed; each turn brought to view some new and lovelier aspect of bird and forest life.
On a low, barren knoll we cached that day eighty rounds of .45-70 cartridges and 300 rounds of .22's, George marking the spot with a circle of stakes. That left us 120 rounds of .45-70's and 500 rounds of .22's. It had become strictly necessary to lighten our packs, and we had begun to drop odds and ends every day. Together with a yellowlegs George had shot, it seasoned a pot of pea soup.
Here we put up a monument on a tree, and were mortified to think we had not done so at our farthest camp. There were numbers of Yellowlegs breeding here; we were surprised to see them resting on trees or flying from one branch to another. A Great Gray-owl sitting on a stump was a conspicuous feature of our landscape view; his white choker shone like a parson's.
Among those able to hold their own, with proper encouragement, are the following: two loons, two murres, the puffin, guillemot, razor-billed auk, dovekie and pomarine jæger; six gulls ivory, kittiwake, glaucous, great black-back, herring and Bonaparte; two terns arctic and common; the fulmar, two shearwaters, two cormorants, the red-breasted merganser and the gannet; seven ducks the black, golden-eye, old squaw and harlequin, with the American, king and Greenland eiders; three scoters; four geese snow, blue, brant and Canada; two phalaropes, several sandpipers, with the Hudsonian godwit and both yellowlegs; two snipes; five plovers; and the Eskimo and Hudsonian curlews.
The great auk and the Labrador duck have both become utterly extinct within living memory. The Eskimo curlew is decreasing to the danger point, and the Yellowlegs is following. The lobster fishing is being wastefully conducted along the St. Lawrence; so, indeed, are the other fisheries.
George produced yellowlegs shot yesterday. He carried pack up river 2 miles. Diarrhoea. In tent I studied how to take time with sextant. Observation failed. Much worried over Wallace till he came in about 7 P.M. Compass went wrong; he lay out overnight. Stewed yellowlegs and pea meal to-night. Saturday, July 25th. Four miles. Weak from diarrhoea.
Then I crossed more planted fields, climbing more barbed-wire fences, and stopping on the way to enjoy the sweetly quaint music of a little chorus of white-crowned sparrows, and skirted once more the muddy shore of the cane-swamp, where the yellowlegs and sandpipers were still feeding. Once back at the hotel, I opened my Coues's Key to refresh my memory as to the exact appearance of that bird.
True enough, about the edges of the water were two or three solitary sandpipers, and at least half a dozen of the smaller yellowlegs, two additions to my Florida list, not to speak of a little blue heron and a green heron, the latter in most uncommonly green plumage. It was well I had interpreted the placard a little generously.
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