352 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 





it, Lake Umbagog. Here you have the last settlement, and 

 by following up the Androscoggin River, which enters the 

 top of the last-mentioned lake, you get into a perfect lab- 

 yrinth of lakes and ponds, united together by brawling 

 streams, only navigable by the lumberman's flat or Indian's 

 birch-back. On all sides precipitous mountains rise, cov- 

 ered with pine-trees where there is a possibility of their 

 clinging, or immense boulders, to all appearance ready to 

 roll from their resting-place into the waters beneath. Arid 

 here in this vast solitude, free from cares, we made our 

 home ; fishing or hunting by day, and sleeping such sleep 

 upon piles of hemlock as seldom is enjoyed on feather-beds 

 (that is, at the end of the fly season) ; for though the bears 

 might growl around, the gray wolf give us a proof of his 

 vocal powers, or the weird note of the loon come shrilly, 

 over the waters, still all formed but a lullaby to make us 

 rest the better. 



In fishing the rivers of all the wild lands of the extreme 

 northern portion of the United States and the Dominion 

 for trout or salmon, little or no sport will be experienced 

 by the angler until the snow-water has run off ; in fact, I 

 do not believe the latter fish will enter a river that has not 

 got rid of that addition. We got to our fishing-ground 

 just at the desired time; a guide we consulted said we 

 were too soon. It being better to be early than late, we 

 pushed at once for our first halting-place, and the result 

 was that we hit things so nicely that we struck the open- 

 ing day. For about two or three weeks the take was very 

 great, and the variety of coloring among our prizes some- 

 thing wonderful. A collecting naturalist, a pupil of the 

 celebrated professor of natural history at Yale College, 

 Cambridge, Massachusetts, joined our party a few days 

 after our arrival; and all these various colored fish were 

 designated by him as Salmo fontinalis. With so great an 



