A SUMMER DRIVE IN THE LAKE COUNTRY. 225 



The commodious hotel is pleasantly situated, and com- 

 mands a view of most delightful scenery, on the one side 

 wild and picturesque, on the other pastoral and artistic. 



You have only to travel a few rods to either woods to 

 find plants that in other localities could not be collected 

 in twice the area, while such birds as the scarlet tanager, 

 purple finch, and Hudsonion sparrows come and sing in 

 the lawn at the very doors of the hotel, and in the sea- 

 son of song you can sit on the veranda and hear the 

 golden-crowned, the wood and Wilson's thrushes which 

 make their home in both the east and west woods. Just 

 across the river, and up among the hemlocks and chest- 

 nuts, I have listened hours to my silver-throated " Pan," 

 the winter wren. This forest is my ' Mecca,' my ' Wal- 

 den Pond,' and the days here are all too short, and the 

 spaces between visits too long, and whenever I come, I 

 am sorry that I did not come sooner, and arrange to 

 stay longer. 



It is a two days' journey from Portage to I^aples, near 

 the head of Canandaigua Lake ; the second day was par- 

 tially along the western shore of Honeoye Lake, another 

 pleasant sheet of water lying deep in the bosom of the 

 hills. The shores are less bold and rocky than those of 

 Hemlock, but equally picturesque and well wooded. 

 The fishing is said to be extremely good here, but the 

 fish are of poor quality in hot weather, as the water is 

 usually warm and more or less roily. A shower of con- 

 siderable severity overtook us midway up the shore, 

 and the most generous shelter in reach was a huge bass- 

 wood that overhung the road. It seemed for a time as 



