8 BEARS AND BEAVERS. 



perseverance to traverse long distances. Packing 

 it from lake to lake, or from stream to stream, might 

 be tedious and .exhaustive work, but this could have 

 been put up with without a murmur if it had not been 

 that while you were in the shelter of the woods you 

 were constantly assailed by innumerable mosquitoes, 

 and as it required both your hands to support your birch 

 bark boat, and steer it in the necessary direction in 

 which you wished to go, so as to prevent its frail 

 sides from coming in contact with tree or bush, you 

 were quite at the mercy of your bloodthirsty 

 foes. 



Excessive exercise produces perspiration, and when 

 such occurs the pores of the skin become open ; and 

 well did your tormentors know this, for a moment after 

 they had alighted upon you, their formidable proboscis 

 would be inserted without difficulty, and the irritation 

 that ensues is easier to imagine than describe. 



What a blessing it is that mosquitoes had not been 

 made the size of elephants, or even of dicky-birds ; a 

 man's life in the haunts they frequent would not be 

 worth an hour's purchase. Mosquitoes I have found 

 troublesome in nearly every part of the world, but 

 for regular out-and-outers, thorough varmints, un- 

 compromising, unconquerable demons, I have never 

 found any that could be compared to those of North 

 and North- West America. 



Fortunately, cultivation of the soil, and clearing 

 away brushwood, tends rapidly to diminish their 

 numbers, so that in a few years it may be hoped that 

 the places which knew them shall know them no 

 more. 



It was a beautiful morning in the middle of Sep- 

 tember when I left my friend's residence, A beauti- 

 ful morning, I may well say, for in no other part of 

 the world have I witnessed such grand and glorious 

 autumns. To make thoroughly enjoyable the 

 exercise of walking, the temperature is perfect, the 



