A line drawn from Mackenzie River to the point where Red Deer River joins the South Saskatchewan would give the line of coal formation observed with tolerable accuracy. These coal-fields are of enormous extent, and will doubtless one day form a large element of wealth in this richly-endowed country of the Saskatchewan. After investigating the coal, we set to work to wash for gold in the sand bars, and were rewarded by finding what miners call “the colour,” _i.e._, a few specks of the finest gold-dust which remain with the black sand left behind when the rest of the “dirt” is washed away. For the next two or three days the country presented the same slightly undulating character, thickly wooded, with hardly a single break, and without any eminence from which a view could be obtained. The only sound ground was on the low narrow ridges which separated the wider shallow valleys. These latter are occupied by “muskegs,” or level swamps, the surface of which is covered with a mossy crust five or six inches in thickness, while a thick growth of pines and the fallen timber add to the difficulties of the road. No one but a Hudson’s Bay voyageur would dream of taking horses into such a region. We met with occasional tracks of the moose and black bear, and at first a few ducks on the streams and lakes; but as we pierced further into the forest, the waters were untenanted by wild fowl. Pigeons, wood partridges, and pine partridges became very plentiful, and we shot them at first in great numbers. The wood partridge, or willow grouse, frequents the thick woods and the low grounds, and is found on both sides of the Rocky Mountains; when disturbed, it generally flies up into a tree, and if there are several together, they tamely sit to be shot, one after the other. In the spring, the male bird exhibits himself for the delight of the female in the following manner. He sits upon a branch, and ruffling his feathers, and spreading his tail like a turkey-cock, shuts his eyes, and drums against his sides with his wings, producing a sound remarkably like distant thunder. When thus engaged, he becomes so absorbed in the performance, that he will allow any one to approach him near enough to snare him with a noose attached to a short stick. By the middle of June, the partridges were surrounded by broods of young, and we ceased to hunt them. When we encountered them, the hen bird, and often the cock also, would come rushing up to within a couple of yards of us, with wings spread, and feathers erect, just like a barn-door hen protecting her chickens. The pine partridge is rather larger than the willow grouse, darker-feathered, like an English grouse, with a scarlet patch over the eyes, and is found only in the “muskegs” or pine swamps. The pigeon is the beautiful long-tailed passenger pigeon, so common in the American woods; we found this bird as far west as the sources of the North Thompson.