Yet I must not forget the "flies"—who that has felt them once can ever forget them? Labrador is not a very happy hunting-ground for the entomologist. But all it lacks in variety of kinds it more than makes up in number of individuals, especially in the detestable trio of bot-flies, blackflies and mosquitoes. The bot-fly infests the caribou and will probably infest the reindeer. The blackfly and mosquito attack both man and beast in maddening millions. The mosquito is not malarious. But that is the only bad thing he is not. Destruction is "conservation" so far as "flies," parasites and disease germs are concerned.
Labrador has over 200 species of birds, from humming-birds and sanderlings to eagles, gannets, loons and herons. Among those able to hold their own, with proper encouragement, are the following: two loons, two murres, the puffin, guillemot, razor-billed auk, dovekie and pomarine jæger; six gulls—ivory, kittiwake, glaucous, great black-back, herring and Bonaparte; two terns—arctic and common; the fulmar, two shearwaters, two cormorants, the red-breasted merganser and the gannet; seven ducks—the black, golden-eye, old squaw and harlequin, with the American, king and Greenland eiders; three scoters; four geese—snow, blue, brant and Canada; two phalaropes, several sandpipers, with the Hudsonian godwit and both yellowlegs; two snipes; five plovers; and the Eskimo and Hudsonian curlews. These two curlews should be absolutely closed to all shooting everywhere for several seasons. They are on the verge of extinction; and it may even now be too late to save them. The great blue heron and American bittern are not common, but less rare than they are supposed to be. Except for the willow and rock ptarmigans the land game-birds are not many in kind or numbers. There are a fair number of ruffed grouse in the south, and more spruce grouse in the north. The birds of prey are well represented by a few golden and more bald-headed eagles, the American rough-legged and other hawks, the black and the white gyrfalcons, the osprey, and eight owls, including the great horned owl, the boldest bird of all. The raven is widely distributed all the year round. Several woodpeckers, kingfishers, jays, bluebird, kingbird, chickadee, snow bunting; several sparrows, including, fortunately, the white-crowned, white-throat and song, but now, unfortunately, the English as well. There are blackbirds, red-polls, a dozen warblers, the American robin, hermit thrush and ruby-throated humming-bird.
Both the land and sea mammals are of great importance. Several whales are well known. The Right is almost exterminated; but the Greenland, or Bow-head, is found along the edge of the ice in all Hudsonian waters. The Pollock is rare, and the Sperm, or Cachalot, as nearly exterminated as the Right. But the Little-piked, or rostrata, is found inshore along the north and east, the Bottle-nose on the north, the Humpback on the east and south; and the Finback and Sulphur-bottom are common and widely distributed, especially on the east. The Little White whale, or "White porpoise," is fairly common all round; the Killer is widely distributed, but most numerous on the east, where the Narwhal is also found. The Harbour and Striped porpoises, and the Common and Bottle-nosed dolphins, are chiefly on the east and south. There are six Seals—the Harbour, Ringed, Harp, Bearded, Grey and Hooded. The Harbour seal is also called the "Common" and the "Wise" seal, and is the vitulina of zoology. It is common all round the coasts, and the Indians of the interior assert that many live permanently in the lakes. Big and Little Seal lakes are more than 100 miles from the nearest salt water. The Ringed seal is locally called "floe rat" and "gum seal." It is the smallest and least valuable of all, and fairly common all round. The Harp seal is "seal," in the same way as cod is "fish." It has various local names, five among the French-Canadians alone, but is specifically known as the Greenland seal. The young, immediately after birth, have a fine white coat, which makes them valuable. The herds are followed on a large scale at the end of the winter season, which is also the whelping season, and hundreds of thousands are killed, females and young preponderating. They are still common along the east and south, but diminishing steadily, especially in the St. Lawrence. The Bearded, or "Square-flipper," seal is rare in the St. Lawrence and on the Atlantic, but commoner in Hudsonian waters. It is a large seal, eight feet long, and bulky in proportion. The Grey, or Horse-head, seal runs up to about the same size occasionally and is one of the gamest animals that swims. It is rare on the Atlantic and not common anywhere on the St. Lawrence. The "Hoods" are the largest of all and the lions of the lot. They run up to 1,000 pounds and over, and sometimes fourteen feet long. They are rare on the Atlantic and decreasing along the St. Lawrence, owing to the Newfoundland hunters. The Walrus, formerly abundant all round, is now rarely seen except in the far north, where he is fast decreasing.
Moose may feel their way in by the southwest to an increasing extent, and might possibly be reinforced by the Alaskan variety. Red deer might possibly be induced to enter by the same way in fair numbers over a limited area. The woodland caribou is almost exterminated, but might be resuscitated. The barren-ground caribou is still plentiful in the north, where most of the herds appear to migrate in an immense ellipse, crossing from west to east, over the barrens, in the fall, to the Atlantic, and then turning south and west through the woods in winter, till they reach their original starting-point near Hudson bay in the spring. But this is not to be counted on. The herds divide, change direction, and linger in different places. Their tame brother, the reindeer, is being introduced as the chief domestic animal of Eastern Labrador, with apparently every prospect of success. Beaver are fairly common and widely distributed in forested areas. Other rodents are frequent—squirrels, musk-rats, mice, voles, lemmings, hares and porcupines. There are two bats. Black bears are general; polars, in the north. Grizzlies have been traded at Fort Chimo in Ungava, but they are probably all killed out. The lynx is common wherever there are woods. There are two wolves, arctic and timber, the latter now rare in the south. The Labrador red fox is very common in the woods, and the "white," or arctic fox, in the barrens and further south on both coasts. The "cross," "silver" and "black" variations of course occur, as they naturally increase towards the northern limits of range. The "blue" is a seasonal change of the "white." The wolverine and otter are common. The skunk is only known in the southwest. The mink ranges through the southern third of the peninsula. The Labrador marten, or "sable," is a sub-species, generally distributed in the forested parts, like the weasel. The "fisher," or Pennant's marten, is much more local, ranging only between the "North Shore" and Mistassini.
From the St. Lawrence to the Barren Grounds three-fourths of the land has been burnt over since the white man came. The resultant loss of all forms of life may be imagined, especially when we remember that the fire often burns up the very soil itself, leaving nothing but rocks and black desolation. Still, there is plenty of fur and feather worth preserving. But nothing can save it unless conservation replaces the present reckless destruction.
DESTRUCTION
When rich virgin soil is first farmed it yields a maximum harvest for a minimum of human care. But presently it begins to fail, and will fail altogether unless man returns to it in one form some of the richness he expects to get from it in another. Now, exploited wild life fails even faster under wasteful treatment; but, on the other hand, with hardly any of the trouble required for continuous farming, quickly recovers itself by being simply let alone. So when we consider how easily it can be preserved in Labrador, and how beneficial its preservation is to all concerned, we can understand how the wanton destruction going on there is quite as idiotic as it is wrong.
Take "egging" as an example. The Indians, Eskimos and other beasts of prey merely preserved the balance of nature by the toll they used to take. No beast of prey, not even the white man, will destroy his own stock supply of food. But with the nineteenth century came the white-man market "eggers", systematically taking or destroying every egg in every place they visited. Halifax, Quebec and other towns were centres of the trade. The "eggers" increased in numbers and thoroughness till the eggs decreased in the more accessible spots below paying quantities. But other egging still goes on unchecked. The game laws of the province of Quebec distinctly state: "It is forbidden to take nests or eggs of wild birds at any time". But the swarms of fishermen who come up the north shore of the St. Lawrence egg wherever they go. If they are only to stay in the same spot for a day or two, they gather all the eggs they can, put them into water, and throw away every one that floats. Sometimes three, four, five or even ten times as many are thrown away as are kept, and all those bird lives lost for nothing. Worse still, if the men are going to stay long enough they will often go round the nests and make sure of smashing every single egg. Then they come back in a few days and gather every single egg, because they know it has been laid in the mean time and must be fresh. When we remember how many thousands of men visit the shore, and that the resident population eggs on its own account, at least as high up as the Pilgrims, only 100 miles from Quebec, we need not be prophets to foresee the inevitable end of all bird life when subjected to such a drain. And this is on the St. Lawrence, where there are laws and wardens and fewer fishermen. What about the Atlantic Labrador, where there are no laws, no wardens, many more fishermen, and ruthless competitive egging between the residents and visitors? Of course, where people must egg or starve there is nothing more to be said. But this sort of egging is very limited, not enough to destroy the birds, and the necessity for it will become less frequent as other sources of supply become available. It is the utterly wanton destruction that is the real trouble.
And it is just as bad with the birds as with the eggs. A schooner captain says, "Now, boys, here's your butcher shop: help yourselves!" and this, remember, is in the brooding season. Not long ago the men from a vessel in Cross harbour landed on an islet full of eiders and killed every single brooding mother. Such men have grown up to this, and there is that amount of excuse for them. Besides, they ate the birds, though they destroyed the broods. Yet, as they always say, "We don't know no law here," it may be suspected that they do know there really is one. These men do a partly excusable wrong. But what about those who ought to know better? In the summer of 1907 an American millionaire's yacht landed a party who shot as many brooding birds on St. Mary island as they chose, and then left the bodies to rot and the broods to perish. That was, presumably, for sport. For the same kind of sport, motor boats cut circles round diving birds, drown them, and let the bodies float away. The North Shore people have drowned myriads of moulting scoters in August; but they use the meat. Bestial forms of sport are many and vile. "C'est un plaisir superbe" was the description given by some voyageurs on exploring work, who had spent the afternoon chasing young birds about the rocks and stamping them to death. Deer were literally hacked to pieces by construction gangs on new lines last summer. Dynamiting a stream is quite a common trick wherever it is safe to play it. Harbour seals are wantonly shot in deep fresh water where they cannot be recovered, much as seagulls are shot by blackguards from an ocean liner.
And the worst of it is that all this wanton destruction is not by any means confined to the ignorant or those who have been brought up to it. The men from the American yacht must have known better. So do those educated men from our own cities, who shoot out of season down the St. Lawrence and plead, quite falsely, that there is no game law below the Brandy Pots. It is, of course, well understood that a man can always shoot for necessary food. But this provision is shamelessly misused. Last summer, when a great employer of labour down the Gulf was telling where birds could be shot to the greatest advantage out of season, and I was objecting that it was not clean sport, he said, "Oh, but Indians can shoot for food at any time—and we're all Indians here!" And what are we to think of a rich man who used caribou simply as targets for his new rifle, and a scientific man who killed 72 in one morning, only to make a record? We need the true ideal of sport and an altogether new ideal of conservation, and we need them very badly and very soon.