14 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 70. 



and waterfowl during- the open season, by trapping fur-bear- 

 ing animals in the winter and by fishing', acting as guides and 

 doing- farm work during the spring and summer. The squaws 

 are often seen gathering the wild black rice that grows in 

 great abundance in the marshes on the shores of the lake, and 

 on account of which the name, "'Rice Lake," was given to it. 



As has already been suggested, one of the principle reasons 

 why T decided to spend my vacation on the Otonabee River 

 was because three young men of my acquaintance were enjoy- 

 ing- a month's outing on its banks and had invited me to make 

 their camp my vacation headquarters. Upon reaching Gore's 

 Landing, therefore, I immediately rented a birch bark canoe, 

 and after securing some information from the hotel keeper, 

 paddled back across the lake and up the river to a point about 

 a mile distant from the mouth. Here I found my three friends 

 cozily and comfortably established in a picturesque little 

 wooden hut, located on a gentle slope of land on the east side 

 of the river. This hut was built in a little clearing- bounded 

 on three sides by thick woods, and on the fourth by the river. 

 It was an ideal place for a camp, and I was overjoyed at the 

 prospect of spendin.g a week amid such delightful and pic- 

 turesque suroundings, and with such good prospects for 

 studying- many different species of interesting birds and ani- 

 mals. 



One of my hosts was a medical student and amateur photog- 

 rapher ; another was an instructor in German in an eastern 

 college, and the third was a yoimg lawyer. All three were en- 

 thusiastic lovers of nature and out-of-door life and all were 

 agreed that the Otonabee River and the adjacent country con- 

 stituted an ideal camping-place. Their cordiality and hospi- 

 tality made me feel perfectly at home from the start, and by 

 the time dinner was over T had learned from them many in- 

 terestinc: facts about the river, the lake, the surrounding coun- 

 try and the fauna and flora of that region. 



That evening, after we had finished our supper and washed 

 the (lishe^, we all repaired to the front ])orch of the camp to 



