seemed to be abundant also; besides,
the open space between the trees, admitting the warm sunbeam freely,
was favourable both for the bees and the flowers on which they fed, and
Louis talked joyfully of the fine stores of honey they should collect
in the fell. He had taught little Fanchon, a small French spaniel of his
father's, to find out the trees where the bees hived, and also the
nests of the ground-bees, and she would bark at the foot of the tree,
or scratch with her feet on the ground, as the other dogs barked at the
squirrels or the woodchucks; but Fanchon was far away, and Wolfe was
old, and would learn no new tricks, so Louis knew he had nothing but his
own observation and the axe to depend upon for procuring honey.

The boys had been unsuccessful for some days past in fishing; neither
perch nor sunfish, pink roach nor mud-pouts _[FN: All these fish
are indigenous to the fresh waters of Canada.]_ were to be caught.
However, they found water-mussels by groping in the sand, and cray-fish
among the gravel at the edge of the water only; the last pinched their
fingers very spitefully. The mussels were not very palateable, for want
of salt; but hungry folks must not be dainty, and Louis declared
them very good when well roasted, covered up with hot embers. "The
fish-hawks," said he, "set us a good example, for they eat them, and so
do the eagles and herons. I watched one the other day with a mussel in
his bill; he flew to a high tree, let his prey fall, and immediately
darted down to secure it; but I drove him off, and, to my great
amusement, perceived the wise fellow had just let it fall on a stone,
which had cracked the shell for him just in the right place. I often see
shells lying at the foot of trees, far up the hills, where these birds
must have left them. There is one large thick-shelled mussel, that I
have found several times with a round hole drilled through the shell,
just as if it had been done with a small auger, doubtless the work of
some bird with a strong beak."

"Do you remember," said Catharine, "the fine pink mussel-shell that Hec.
picked up in the little corn-field last year; it had a hole in one of
the shells too; _[FN: This ingenious mode of cracking the shells
of mussels is common to many birds. The crow (_Corvus corone_) has been
long known by American naturalists to break the thick shells of the
river mussels, by letting them fall from a height on to rocks and
stones.]_ and when my uncle sa