chimney with fagots, we spent a cheerful evening before the invigorating blaze.  The change was peculiarly beneficial to Dr. Richardson who, having in one of his excursions incautiously laid down on the frozen side of a hill when heated with walking, had caught a severe inflammatory sore throat which became daily worse whilst we remained in the tents but began to mend soon after he was enabled to confine himself to the more equable warmth of the house.  We took up our abode at first on the floor but our working party, who had shown such skill as house carpenters, soon proved themselves to be, with the same tools (the hatchet and crooked knife) excellent cabinetmakers and daily added a table, chair, or bedstead to the comforts of our establishment.  The crooked knife generally made of an old file, bent and tempered by heat, serves an Indian or Canadian voyager for plane, chisel, and auger.  With it the snowshoe and canoe-timbers are fashioned, the deals of their sledges reduced to the requisite thinness and polish, and their wooden bowls and spoons hollowed out.  Indeed though not quite so requisite for existence as the hatchet yet without its aid there would be little comfort in these wilds.

On the 7th we were gratified by a sight of the sun after it had been obscured for twelve days.  On this and several following days the meridian sun melted the light covering of snow or hoarfrost on the lichens which clothe the barren grounds, and rendered them so tender as to attract great herds of reindeer to our neighbourhood.  On the morning of the 10th I estimated the numbers I saw during a short walk at upwards of two thousand.  They form into herds of different sizes from ten to a hundred according as their fears or accident induce them to unite or separate.

The females being at this time more lean and active usually lead the van.  The haunches of the males are now covered to the depth of two inches or more with fat which is beginning to get red and high flavoured and is considered a sure indication of the commencement of the rutting season.  Their horns, which in the middle of August were yet tender, have now attained their proper size and are beginning to lose their hairy covering which hangs from them in ragged filaments.  The horns of the reindeer vary not only with its sex and age but are otherwise so uncertain in their growth that they are never alike in any two individuals.  The old males shed theirs about the end of December; the females retain them until the disappearance of the snow enables them to frequent the barren grounds which may be stated to be about the middle or end of May, soon after which period they proceed towards the sea-coast and drop their young.  The young males lose their horns about the same time with the females or a little earlier, some of them as early as April.  The hair of the reindeer falls in July and is succeeded by a short thick coat of mingled clove, deep reddish and yellowish browns; the belly and under