In considering the birch-bark canoes of the Malecite, it is important to understand that this tribal form includes not only the types used in more recent times in New Brunswick and on Passamaquoddy Bay, but also an overlapping type related to the later Abnaki models. The old form of Malecite canoe used on the large rivers and along the coast appears to have had rather high-peaked ends, with a marked overhang fore and aft. The end profiles had a sloping outline, strongly curved into the bottom, and a rather sharply lifting sheer toward each end. This form was also to be seen in old canoes from the St. John River (the lower valley), the Passamaquoddy, the Penobscot, and the upper St. Lawrence. By late in the 19th century, however, this style of canoe had been replaced by canoes having rounded ends, the profiles being practically quarter-circles and sometimes with such small radii that a slight tumble-home appeared near the sheer. The small radius of the end curves is particularly marked in some of the seagoing porpoise-hunting canoes of the Passamaquoddy. In modern forms, the amount of sheer is moderate and the quick lift in the sheer to the ends is practically nonexistent. On the St. Lawrence, the radii of the end curves are very short and the upper part of the stems stands vertical and straight; the sheer, too, is usually rather straight. The older type, with high-peaked ends, was also marked by very sharp lines forward and aft, and had a midsection with tumble-home less extreme than in the Micmac canoes. The bottom, athwartships, was usually somewhat rounded (in coastal canoes the form might be a rounded ~V~) and the bilges were rather slack, with a reverse curve above, to form the tumble-home rather close to the gunwales. The river model probably had lower ends and less rake than the coastal type, but surviving examples of both give confusing evidence. The river canoes usually had a flatter bottom than the coastal type, the latter having somewhat more rocker fore-and-aft. The sections near the ends were rather ~V~-shaped in the coastal canoes, ~U~-shaped in the river canoes. The old form of small hunting canoe is represented by but one poor model (see p. 72) in which the ends are lower and with much less rake than those of the river type. From this very scant evidence, it seems probable that the small woods canoes were patterned on the river canoe in all respects but the profile of the ends. [Illustration: Figure 62 MALECITE 2½-FATHOM RIVER CANOE, 19TH CENTURY. Old form with raking ends and much sheer.]