Familiar Scenes on Forest Lakes. 223 



of observers continues to adhere entirely to what is called the 

 "glacial " and another to the "iceberg" theories. 



The stillness of the scenery is impressive, and after the eye 

 has ranged over the great expanse of wood and water, or 

 revelled in the varied, changing, and unparalleled beauty of 

 the maple and other leaves in autumn, and got accustomed to 

 the prospect, the mind naturally longs to know what manner of 

 animals live in these forests of maple, poplar, spruce, and pine, 

 with the charred and weathered forms of their dead brethren 

 towering weird-like above the living.* Or, peering down- 

 wards, we desire to become familiar with the denizens of the 

 deep, for at this season in vain we scan the mirror-like surface 

 in quest of waterfowl, and to no purpose troll for "togue," 

 and run silently up the weedy shores in quest of ducks. Then, 

 shooting across the placid bosom of the lake for several miles, 

 we begin to meditate a return to camp, when hark! at last the 

 solitude is broken. What is that loud plaintive cry proceed- 

 ing from yonder island, and echoed back in scarcely feebler 

 sounds from the opposite cove ? It is the familiar " wu-loo " 

 of the great northern diver, and we spy its long neck in the 

 distance. Louder and more frequent are the cries ; another and 

 another chimes in on our starboard side as we move rapidly 

 forward, and the Indian spies young loons with their parents 

 not five hundred yards off. More garrulous do the old birds 

 become as we approach ; at length, after expending their cries 

 in vain, they raise their graceful figures, and in the usual way, 

 half flying, half swimming, splash the waters with their wings 

 like the paddles of a steamboat for upwards of fifty yards, 

 then rising above the surface, shoot rapidly away to yonder 

 islet in the distance, and abandon their offspring to their fate. 



During our sojourn at Grand Lake, I captured several red- 



* During a short excursion on the shore I came on the trail of bears 

 among the blue berries, and several footprints of Virginian deer were also 

 noticed. 



