destruction on the Labrador is horrible to contemplate. The
outer islands were scoured by crews from foreign vessels,
and whole loads of eggs carried off. There has not been much
of this done in recent years. There can he no doubt that, if
certain of the larger and less inhabited islands were set
apart, and carefully protected, the birds would return to
them. I believe that owing to the constant way in which the
birds--eider ducks, certain of the divers, gulls, &c., were
disturbed, on their natural and original nesting places,
they have changed their habits; and, instead of nesting on
the islands and by the sea, they have moved to the shores of
the interior lakes. You see flocks of young birds in the
fall; they have come from the interior, as they were not
hatched out on the islands as they used to be.

The destruction of geese and curlew does not take place on
the Labrador. These birds are not disturbed on their nesting
grounds; but, to the south and west when they are passing to
their winter haunts. Geese are found feeding on the
hill-sides, on the most distant and northern islands--as far
north as any of our explorers have gone. The first birds
Sverdrup met as he was coming south, in the early spring,
were wild geese. These birds are not disturbed on their
breeding grounds. The Eskimo do not meddle with them. In the
same way caribou are found feeding about the shores of
Hudson bay and strait. Like the geese, they feed on berries
about the hill sides. I have shot them at the mouth of
Churchill river, and near cape Digges in August, when they
were very fat--so fat that it is said that, on falling on
hard ground, they would burst open; though this did not