IN A FISHING COUNTRY 



nest in some quiet reach, were swept past 

 us. The little ones were almost spent with 

 their wild passage through a mile of tem- 

 pestuous rapid, but, notwithstanding the 

 fatigue and distress that were so evident, 

 the mother pushed steadily on, her children 

 following as best they might. Yet was she 

 mindful of them, for in calmer water she 

 stopped and looked back, — summoning 

 them, we fancied. The chicks caught up 

 to her and vanished; not for a little while 

 were we able to discover the fledgelings on 

 her comfortable back where they crouched 

 and clung as she steered her way to safety 

 and a new home. I imagine that few have 

 had the pleasure of chancing on such a 

 sight; one of us found some dusty memory 

 in the lumber-room of his mind ; two woods- 

 men of very wide experience, appealed to 

 afterwards, declared that they had heard 

 tine histoire semblable racoTitee beside some 

 camp-fire of their youth, and another keen 

 observer asserted that he once had seen an 

 instance of this motherly care. 



There seemed no likelihood of raising 

 anything in a discoloured torrent where the 

 fly would not be visible to a fish lying six 

 inches below the surface; yet a trout of two 

 and three-quarter pounds was taken that 

 118 



