IN A FISHING COUNTRY 



cies based on the thickness of the beaver's 

 lodge, or muskrat's house, the bones of the 

 wild goose, the squirrel's hoard, bird migra- 

 tions, the annual experiment of ground- 

 hog and bear, learned men were set by the 

 Government at Washington to investigate. 

 Their interesting report discloses just ,<a 

 grain of truth amid the rubbish. It shows 

 how birds, beasts, fishes, insects, make fre- 

 quent and egregious mistakes which lead 

 them to disaster. Migrations are often too 

 early or too late, with the result in either 

 case that many perish. The loon is of the 

 first authority on all that pertains to water, 

 but the mother loon I wrote of did not 

 build beyond reach of flood, and I have 

 observed the hard case of yet another, com- 

 pelled by falling water to abandon nest and 

 eggs. None can boast infallible instinct 

 or foreknowledge. All blunder at one 

 time or another, and, blundering, pay the 

 penalty. 



Where then is the grain of truth to be 

 found? Only in application of the fact — 

 undoubted, though little understood — that 

 like tends to breed meteorological like. 

 Contrary to the opinion which seems to 

 prevail, probabilities favour the persist- 

 ence of that type of weather with which, 

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