Pearls and PebblesHow fitting to close out the 20th century with a brand new edition of Pearls & Pebbles by the noted chronicler of pioneer life, Catharine Parr Traill. Published in 1894, Pearls & Pebbles is an unusual book with a lasting charm, in which the author's broad focus ranges from the Canadian natural environment to early settlement of Upper Canada. Through Traill's eyes, we see the life of the pioneer woman, the disappearance of the forest, and the corresponding changes in the life of the Native Canadians who have inhabited that forest. Editor Elizabeth Thompson reminds us of the significance of the writings by Traill, the aged author/naturalist, who felt that the hours spent gathering the pebbles and pearls from her notebooks and journals written in the backwoods of Canada was not time wasted. |
From inside the book
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... passing of the old ways and the loss of indigenous life forms . Ultimately , Traill's analysis of connec- tions between man and his environment has significance today , as we too face the continued destruction of the natural world in ...
... passed . My father's fami- ly came from the north of England , where among the mountain dales and fells still lingered many primitive customs and ancient rural sports . Of these the keeping of May Day — no doubt a relic of some ancient ...
... passed so near the rocks that the overhanging boughs of the trees almost swept the sides of the smokestack , startling from their night roosts flocks of blackbirds and pigeons . Flying out they circled around us , then settled again ...
... passing puff of wind blew away some snips of the white material that we had been busy with and carried them among the grass just below the syringa bush , where the foundation of a nest had just been laid by the female bird . Her bright ...
... passing the tree by the glitter of her large lustrous black eyes , and , on approaching nearer , by her soft rounded head , the snowy whiteness of her breast and her delicate fawn - brown back and wings . The silkiness of the plumage ...
Contents
3 | |
5 | |
9 | |
14 | |
21 | |
MORE ABOUT MY FEATHERED FRIENDS | 32 |
A DEFENSE | 45 |
NOTES FROM MY OLD DIARY | 49 |
THOUGHTS ON VEGETABLE INSTINCT | 109 |
SOME CURIOUS PLANTS | 115 |
SOME VARIETIES OF POLLEN | 120 |
THE CRANBERRY MARSH | 123 |
OUR NATIVE GRASSES | 126 |
INDIAN GRASS | 132 |
MOSSES AND LICHENS | 136 |
THE INDIAN MOSS BAG | 141 |
THE SPIDER | 58 |
PROSPECTING AND WHAT I FOUND IN MY DIGGING | 62 |
THE ROBIN AND THE MIRROR | 65 |
IN THE CANADIAN WOODS | 67 |
THE FIRST DEATH IN THE CLEARING | 82 |
ALONE IN THE FOREST | 90 |
ON THE ISLAND OF MINNEWAWA | 99 |
THE CHILDREN OF THE FOREST | 103 |
SOMETHING GATHERS UP THE FRAGMENTS | 144 |
APPENDIX A | 151 |
APPENDIX B | 181 |
APPENDIX C | 183 |
ENDNOTES | 187 |
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS | 199 |
INDEX | 203 |