NOVA SCOTIA FRESH-WATER SPONGES— MACKAY. 145 
and solitary, the largest of our inland lakes, is exceedingly 
pleasing and picturesque—here expanding into a broad sheet of 
limpid glow, there presenting narrow wavy outlines in the sombre 
shadows of islands that look as if afloat, and bearing mast like the 
spruce and hemlock which give them a trim and characteristic 
appearance; and again we come unawares on long winding 
armlets branching and converging with fringed borders of willow 
and alder, that dip their pendant branches into the water, all 
giving a semblance of vastness to this natural landscape scenery, 
that when once seen is not easily forgotten. 
The Mic-Mae has for ages established this secluded retreat. 
commonly known as the Indian Gardens, as the centre of his 
hunting operations. Here in summer he can provide himself with 
fish, and in winter he is in the path of the Moose or Elk, that 
still roam at large and almost unmolested over the vast tract 
of wilderness. The Beaver, too, is still active in the lakes and 
swamps along this district, and although his domain, like that 
of the Moose, is fast becoming circumscribed, he yet furnishes 
some winter sport and employment to the hunter and trapper. 

ArT. I[X.—NotTEs on Nova Scorta FRESH-WATER SPONGES. 
BywA. A Mackay, ByA...B. Se 
(Read 12th May, 1884.) 
About the middle of August, 1883, I spent a few hours 
examining the MacIntosh Lake, near the north-eastern extremity 
of the Cobequid range, and the Earltown Lakes, a little higher 
up on the same range, with the object of learning the nature of 
the deposits at their bottoms. Having extemporized a small 
raft on the former lake, I paddled out a little distance, and with 
my face close to the water, saw old branches of trees in the 
bottom, with patches of a thick green vrowth surrounding por- 
tions of them, sometimes bearing short finger-like projections. 
Drawing these up, I made my first practical acquaintance with 
a fresh-water sponge. On the hard, gravelly beach of a small 
