fs of
red sandstone and ruddy clay, surmounted by green fields, which stretch
away inland to small areas of the primeval forest, which once extended
unbroken from the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the waters of
the Straits of Northumberland.

Drear and desolate is it in winter, when the straits are filled with
ice, which, in the shape of floe, and berg, and pinnacle, pass in
ghostly procession to and fro, as the wind wafts them, or they feel the
diurnal impetus of the tides they cover, to escape in time from the
narrow limits of the pass, and lose themselves in the vast ice-barrier
that for five long months shuts out the havens of St. Jean from the open
sea.

No ship can enter the deserted ports, over whose icy covering the
farmer carries home his year's firing, and the young gallant presses his
horse to his greatest speed to beat a rival team, or carry his fair
companion to some scene of festivity twenty miles away. Many spend the
whole winter in idleness; and to all engaged in aught but professional
duties, the time hangs heavily for want of enjoyable out-of-door
employment. It is, therefore, a season of rejoicing to the cooped-up
sportsman when the middle of March arrives, attended, as is usually the
case, by the first lasting thaws, and the advent of a few flocks of wild
geese.

Among the wealthier sportsmen great preparations are made for a spring
campaign, which often lasts six or eight weeks. Decoys of wood,
sheet-iron, and canvas, boats for decoy-shooting and stealthy approach,
warm clothes, caps, and mittens of spotless white, powder by the keg,
caps and wads by the thousand, and shot by the bag, boots and moccasons
water and frost proof, and a vast variety of small stores for the inner
man, are among the necessaries provided, sometimes weeks in advance of
the coming of the few scattering flocks which form, as it were, the
skirmish line of the migrating hosts of the Canada goose.

It is usual for a small party to board with some farmer, as near as
possible to the shooting grounds, or rather ice, for not infrequently
the strong-winged foragers, who press so closely on the rearguard of the
retreating frost king, find nothing in the shape of open water; but
after leaving their comrades, dead and dying, amid the fatal decoys on
the frozen channels, sweep hastily southward before cold, fatigue,
hunger, and the wiles and weapons of man, can finish the deadly work so
thoroughly begun.

Such a party of s