The principal articles in which the Hudson's Bay Company trade, are furs of all kinds, oil, dry and salt fish, feathers and quills. Of the furs, the most valuable is that of the black fox, which resembles the common English fox, but is much larger and jet black, except one or two white hairs along the back bone, and a white tuft at the end of the tail. This animal's skin is very valuable, worth twenty-five to thirty guineas in the English market, but the specimens are very scarce. Besides the black fox, there are silver foxes, cross foxes, red, white, and blue foxes, whose hides are variously esteemed. The black, silver, cross, and red, are often produced in the same litter, the mother being a red fox. Beaver was formerly the grand article of commerce, but Paris hats have killed the demand and saved the beavers, which now build and fatten in comparative security. The marten fur is the most profitable Hudson's Bay produces. All the animals above named, and a few others, are caught in steel and wooden traps by the natives. Deer and buffaloes are run down, shot, and snared. Mr Ballantyne rather startles us by the statement, that the Indians can send an arrow through a buffalo. "In the Saskatchewan, the chief food, both of white men and Indians, is buffalo meat, so that parties are constantly sent out to hunt the buffalo. They generally chase them on horseback, the country being mostly prairie land; and, when they get close enough, shoot them with guns. The Indians, however, shoot them oftener with the bow and arrow, as they prefer keeping their powder and shot for warfare. They are very expert with the bow, which is short and strong, and can easily send an arrow quite through a buffalo at twenty yards off." We almost suspect Mr Ballantyne of drawing a longer bow than his Indian friends. We do not understand him, however, to have himself seen any of these marvellous shots, (although he gives a spirited little drawing of a buffalo hunt,) and perhaps some of the wild fellows of the Saskatchewan brigade imposed upon his youthful credulity. These "brigades" are flotillas of boats, manned by Canadian and half-breed _voyageurs_, who take goods for barter to the interior, and bring back furs in exchange. The men of the Saskatchewan "come from the prairies and the Rocky Mountains, and are consequently brimful of stories of the buffalo hunt, attacks upon grizzly bears, and wild Indians; some of them interesting and true enough, but the most of them either tremendous exaggerations or altogether inventions of their own wild fancies." To return, however, to the buffaloes. Two calves were wanted alive, to be sent to England, and a party was ordered out to procure them.