46 ' AMERICAN GAME FISHES. 



pied common ground at once. We talked of fish and fishing- 

 tackle, the natural history of the country, and kindred topics, 

 and when we finally parted, I was quite at my ease, and felt 

 more than ever the truth of the old adage, that "one touch 

 of nature makes the whole world kin." Had we never fished, 

 we had never met! 



Earl Dufferin, his predecessor, was a most proficient 

 angler, and so was the countess. Both were at one time 

 guests of the Hon. Allan Gilmour, of Ottawa, who owns a 

 princely preserve of 5,000 acres on the Godbout. They 

 fished that river in 1876, staid two days, and are credited with 

 a score of seven fish, aggregating seventy-one pounds in weight. 

 Dufferin on one occasion had fought a fish manfully in one 

 of the most difficult pools on the river, where the old Scotch- 

 man delights to test the mettle of his visitors. In an attempt 

 to bring the fish to gaff, after a long struggle, he slipped on 

 the rocks and plunged into the drink. He got a thorough 

 wetting, but saved his fish and won a reputation. The 

 laugh, however, does not come in here. The climax is 

 reached when his lordship appears an hour afterward in a dry 

 suit of Mr. Gilmour' s habiliments, loaned /// extremis, which 

 were as much of a fit as one could expect where one man was 

 only of fair average size, while the other stood six feet two 

 in his socks, and weighed at least sixteen stone. 



The Godbout River is several hundred miles below Quebec, 

 and until recently was considered to be almost at the anti- 

 podes. At present date, however, nearly all of the rivers on the 

 north shore of the St. Lawrence River, which do not belong 

 to ancient seigniories, are up for lease, and it is every year be- 

 coming more and more interesting to see how the spirit of 

 exploration and emulation is carrying our own people of 

 the United States fartWer and farther into the remote por- 

 tions of the Canadian Dominion. Within two years they 

 have taken possession of a large part of the Lake St. John 

 country, and the wilderness lying between it and Quebec, 



