16 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 70. 



our enjoying the long-, pleasant evenings together. Whenever 

 one of us had occasion to venture outside the friendly protec- 

 tion of the wire netting after sunset, he invariably wore a mo- 

 squito-proof cage on his head and thick gloves on his hands. 

 No wonder that we often bemoaned the fact that there were 

 no nocturnal flycatchers to prey upon these insects and keep 

 them within bounds. 



That evening we had the pleasure of a call from an old 

 back- woods-man, who lived in a log hut across the river. My 

 companions had made his acquaintance some days before, 

 when he had stopped to show them a strange bird that he had 

 killed, and which proved to be a Least Bittern. Our visitor 

 was about fifty-five years of age, and had spent the greater 

 part of his life near the Otonabee River and Rice Lake. In 

 fact, the campers and tourists had learned to consider him as 

 much a part of that locality as the hills, forests and other 

 natural features of the place. He lived by hunting, fishing, 

 trapping, river-driving and wood-chopping, and it was ru- 

 mored that he had accumulated a modest fortune in real es- 

 tate and money. He was a confirmed back-woods-man, how- 

 ever, and had no taste for ordinary civilized life or its customs. 

 Although, as a rule, he was a man of very few words, never- 

 theless, as the evening wore on, he became quite talkative and 

 recounted to us quite a number of his adventures and exper- 

 iences in the wilderness. 



His narratives were graphic and interesting, and he was 

 very careful not to exaggerate. Among other things, he 

 told us that during one winter, in the early seventies, 

 he had succeeded in trapping seven hundred muskrats, 

 twenty-eight minks, fortv-two martens, four otters and two 

 beavers, besides a number of other fur-bearers. He also ad- 

 vised us that during one summer he had shipped four hundred 

 dollars worth of bass, trout and muscallonge of his own catch- 

 ing, to the Toronto markets. 



In answer to an inquiry from me as to the abundance of the 

 wild ducks in that locality, the old traper made the following 

 statement : 



