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. And 
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 
