GLIMPSES OF CANADA, ETC. 249 



couple of ponds, and the facilities for damming others 

 out of a picturesque valley, these sportsmen had formed 

 themselves into a company, and bought up some hun- 

 dreds of acres of land. Their house was a wooden 

 one-storied building in the middle of a fine orchard and 

 garden, and outside the front veranda, where you sat 

 in squatter chairs to smoke the pipe of peace away 

 from the noise of civilisation, there stood a discarded 

 punt converted into a bed of gloriously blooming 

 petunias. It was an ideal spot for week-end outings. 

 The pond nearest the clubhouse had once served the 

 business of a mill long abandoned, and it was full of 

 sunken logs and of fontinalis always spoken of in 

 Canada as speckled trout, and the same, of course, as 

 the " brook trout " of the States. They were said 

 never to rise to a fly, and they are fished for with live 

 minnows or worms, with float tackle. There was a 

 lower lake less encumbered with snags and submerged 

 timber, made by the club by building a workmanlike 

 dam at the lower end of the property, and the clear 

 little stream which once worked the mill keeps it clear 

 and sweet, after, on the way down the valley, between 

 the two ponds, doing good service at the club hatchery 

 hidden in a lovely thicket of sylvan wildness, and 

 looked after for their brother members by the intelli- 

 gent farmer, who with his mother and wife takes 

 charge of the clubhouse and fishery. The fun we all 

 had at eventide, sitting in the punts and catching or 

 missing the trout that dragged our floats under, was 

 certainly uproarious, and I am ashamed, now that I 

 am writing in cold blood, to say that I enjoyed it as 

 much as any of the party. 



But this was a bad example to friend A., who, as I 

 have previously stated, was " no fisherman." He 

 blandly smiled as I begged him to understand that it 



