ginable nuisance to the trapper, whose baits they steal even before
his back is turned) is still heard; the snow-birds and other small
winged creatures are never quiet between sunset and sunrise; the
jack-rabbit, whose black bead-like eye betrays his presence among the
snow-drifts in spite of his snow-white fur, is common enough; and the
childlike wailing of the coyotes is heard every night. But with the
exception of the shriek of the snow-owl or the yelping of a fox emerged
from his lair, there is no sound of life during seven or eight or nine
months of winter on the Barren Grounds; unless the traveller is able to
hear the rushing sound--some can hear it, others cannot--of the shifting
Northern lights.

In May, however, when the snows melt and the swamps begin to thaw, the
Barren Grounds become full of life. To begin with, the sky is literally
darkened with enormous flights of wild-fowl, whom instinct brings from
the southern reaches of the Mississippi and its tributaries to these
sub-Arctic wildernesses, where they find an abundance of food, and at
the same time build their nests and rear their young in safety. The
snow-geese are the first to arrive; next come the common and eider-duck;
after them the great northern black-and-red-throated divers; and last of
all the pin-tail and the long-tail ducks. Some of these go no further
than just beyond the outskirts of the forest region; others, flying
further northward, lay their eggs in the open on the moss. Eagles and
hawks prey on these migratory hosts; troops of ptarmigan (they are said
to go to no place where the mercury does not freeze) seek food among the
stunted willows on the shores of the lakes and sloughs; and in sunny
weather the snow-bunting's song is heard.

Soon after the arrival of the migratory birds the wilderness becomes
newly clothed in green and gray. The snow, which never once thaws during
the long winter, forms a safe protection for vegetable life.

As soon as the lengthening summer's day has thawed this coverlet of
snows, vegetation comes on at a surprising rate--a week's sunshine on
the wet soil completely transforming the aspect of the country. It is
then that the caribou leave their winter quarters in the forest region
and journey to the Barren Grounds.

Just as the prairies might have been called "Buffalo-land" thirty years
ago, and the intervening enforested country may still be styled
"Moose-land"--not that the moose is nearly so common in Sas