Lake Umbagog.
1896
September 16
  One of the most perfect of September days, nearly calm,
the air exceptionally clear & sparkling, the sky filled
with great cloud masses drifting lazily & casting their
shadows on the slopes of the mountains.
  Spent the day at Sunday Cove with C. & E.R.S. rowing
across the North Bay in the morning and sailing home
in the late afternoon. We landed first at the high ledge
but finding the place very sunny & otherwise ill-adapted
to our purpose kept on and entering the cove found
just inside the point on the right of the entrance
the prettiest little nook imaginable, sheltered alike
from sun and wind, with beautiful woods of mixed
growth covering the slope behind and a shore piled
with blocks and boulders of every conceivable size and
shape. Just above the place where we drew out our
boat a ledge rose nearly vertically from the center to a
height of twelve or fifteen feet. The now distant river
up the Cove was very fine and rendered doubly
attractive by the clear air and constantly changing
cloud effects.
[margin]A day in
Sunday Cove[/margin]
  Two Muskrats inhabited the ledge just mentioned and,
to my surprise, they spent the entire middle part
of the day (which was cloudless and calm) fishing for mussels, swimming out several rods
from shore, diving in water eight or ten feet deep &
taking their mussels in under a shelving rock where
the bottom was thickly strewn with the discarded shells.
[margin]Muskrats
fishing for
mussels at mid-day[/margin]
  A Mink, also, entertained us for nearly half an hour
by appearing among the loose boulders on the other side
of our position and gradually walking towards us until
he came within a few yards of where we were sitting.
[margin]Mink[/margin]