In peaceful times, too, the musket had its service, for at this period
every Canadian was born a disciple of St. Hubert. We must confess that
this great saint did not refuse his protection in this country, where,
with a single shot, a hunter killed, in 1663, a hundred and thirty wild
pigeons. These birds were so tame that one might kill them with an oar
on the bank of the river, and so numerous that the colonists, after
having gathered and salted enough for their winter's provision,
abandoned the rest to the dogs and pigs. How many hunters of our day
would have displayed their skill in these fortunate times! This
abundance of pigeons at a period when our ancestors were not favoured in
the matter of food as we are to-day, recalls at once to our memory the
quail that Providence sent to the Jews in the desert; and it is a fact
worthy of mention that as soon as our forefathers could dispense with
this superabundance of game, the wild pigeons disappeared so totally and
suddenly that the most experienced hunters cannot explain this sudden
disappearance. There were found also about Ville-Marie many partridge
and duck, and since the colonists could not go out after game in the
woods, where they would have been exposed to the ambuscades of the
Iroquois, the friendly Indians brought to market the bear, the elk, the
deer, the buffalo, the caribou, the beaver and the muskrat. On fast days
the Canadians did not lack for fish; eels were sold at five francs a
hundred, and in June, 1649, more than three hundred sturgeons were
caught at Montreal within a fortnight. The shad, the pike, the wall-eyed
pike, the carp, the brill, the maskinonge were plentiful, and there was
besides, more particularly at Quebec, good herring and salmon fishing,
while at Malbaie (Murray Bay) codfish, and at Three Rivers white fish
were abundant.

At first, food, clothing and property were all paid for by exchange of