mother--almost--so I can spake from
experience."

"An' we couldn't find a better place for winter-quarters than what we
see before us," said Garnet. "It looks like a sort o' paradise."

We cannot say what sort of idea Garnet meant to convey by this
comparison, but there could be no question that the scene before them
was exceedingly beautiful. The party had held their consultation on the
crest of a bluff, and just beyond it lay a magnificent bay, the shores
of which were clothed with luxuriant forests, and the waters studded
with many islets. At the distant head of the bay the formation or dip
of the land clearly indicated the mouth of a large river, while small
streams and ponds were seen gleaming amid the foliage nearer at hand.
At the time the sun was blazing in a cloudless sky, and those thick fogs
which so frequently enshroud the coasts of Newfoundland had not yet
descended from the icy north.

"I say, look yonder. What's Blazer about?" whispered Jim Heron,
pointing to his comrade, who had separated from the party, and was seen
with a large stone in each hand creeping cautiously round a rocky point
below them.

Conjecture was useless and needless, for, while they watched him, Blazer
rose up, made a wild rush forward, hurled the stones in advance, and
disappeared round the point. A few moments later he reappeared,
carrying a large bird in his arms.

The creature which he had thus killed with man's most primitive weapon
was a specimen of the great auk--a bird which is now extinct. It was
the size of a large goose, with a coal-black head and back, short wings,
resembling the flippers of a seal, which assisted it wonderfully in the
water, but were useless for flight, broad webbed feet, and legs set so
far back that on land it sat erect like the penguins of the southern
seas. At the time of which we write, the great auk was found in myriads
on the low rocky islets on the eastern shores of Newfoundland.
Now-a-days there is not a single bird to be found anywhere, and only a
few specimens and skeletons remain in the museums of the world to tell
that such creatures once existed. Their extermination was the result of
man's reckless slaughter of them when the Newfoundland banks became the
resort of the world's fishermen. Not only was the great auk slain in
vast numbers, for the sake of fresh food, but it was salted by tons for
future use and sale. The valuable feathers, or down, also proved a
source of temptat