A SUMMER DRIVE IN THE LAKE COUNTRY. 925 
The commodious hotel is pleasantly situated, and com- 
mands a view of most delightful scenery, on the one side 
wild and picturesque, on the other pastoral and artistic. 
You have only to travel a few rods to either woods to 
find plants that in other localities could not be collected 
in twice the area, while such birdsas the scarlet tanager, 
purple finch, and Hudsonion sparrows come and sing in 
the lawn at the very doors of the hotel, and in the sea- 
son of song you can.sit on the veranda and hear the 
golden-crowned, the wood and Wilson’s thrushes which 
make their home in both the east and west woods. Just 
across the river, and up among the hemlocks and chest- 
nuts, I have listened hours to my silver-throated “ Pan,” 
the winter wren. This forest is my ‘ Mecca,’ my ‘ Wal- 
den Pond,’ and the days here are all too short, and the 
spaces between visits too long, and whenever I come, I 
am sorry that I did not come sooner, and arrange to 
stay longer. 
It is a two days’ journey from Portage to Naples, near 
the head of Canandaigua Lake ; the second day was par- 
tially along the western shoreof Honeoye Lake, another 
pleasant sheet of water lying deep in the bosom of the 
hills. The shores are less bold and rocky than those of 
Hemlock, but equally picturesque and well wooded. 
The fishing is said to be extremely good here, but the 
fish are of poor quality in hot weather, as the water is 
usually warm and more or less roily. A shower of con- 
siderable severity overtook us midway up the shore, 
and the most generous shelter in reach wasa huge bass- 
wood that overhung the road. It seemed for a time as 
