THE MINNESOTA LAKE COUNTRY. 465 



is the Minnesota Lake Country, on the head waters of 

 the Mississippi, This immense district is a country 

 filled with lakes, and tracts of rocky forest; chains of 

 these lakes, some small, and others several miles across, 

 are very generally connected by streams, so that a 

 canoe can make its way through a score or more of 

 them, and then by a short " carry" be launched upon 

 a different series. All these waters are stated to be 

 full of the finest fish: trout, bass, pike, pickerel, mas- 

 calonge, etc., and they also abound with wildfowl. 



Mr. Ernest Ingersoll, in a letter in The Field, * 

 states that he " is inclined to think that no better 

 fishing can be found than in the Minnesota Lake 

 country; and at every village and lumbering camp, 

 guides, boats, and camp outfit can be obtained. The 

 expenses of living are very light, and the whole region 

 healthful and invigorating in the extreme." The author 

 however thinks it right to add that when he passed 

 through Minnesota many years ago en route to the 

 Hudson Bay Territory, though fishing and shooting 

 were good, mosquitoes and other flies were a terrible 

 nuisance. They swarmed in myriads, and formed the 

 only drawback to a really lovely country. This lake 

 country extends far to the northward into the British 

 Territory, where extensive morasses and swamps become 

 more common, but fish and game of all kinds abound, 

 as also do the mosquitoes. The larvae of these pests 

 are, it is now generally believed, hatched in water, like 

 the May-fly and the Caddis-fly, and it is notable that 

 the larvae of mosquitoes as well as the fly itself form 

 a considerable item in fish food. 



This plague of flies however seems to be common 



* See The Field of July igth, 1890 letter signed Ernest Ingersoll. 

 VOL. III. 30 



