38 
BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
Returning now to the Monster of Lake Utopia, we possess 
a contemporary record of great interest in A. Leith Adams' 
Field and Forest Rambles, page 56; Adams found, in 1867, large 
baited hooks set by the residents around this lake for the capture 
of the monster. He traced the evidence for its occurrence to 
a strange disturbance observed a short time before in the calm 
waters of the lake, a disturbance he explained as due to some 
such natural causes as the opening of sub-aqueous fissures, or 
else shoals of small fishes, or else tiny squalls from the neigh- 
boring hills. He also mentions that the track of some huge 
animal was claimed to have been traced from the sea to the 
lake some thirty years before.* 
With these matters in mind I have been on the lookout for 
some years past, during my trips on New Brunswick waters, 
for appearances which might sustain a Sea-serpent pre-concep- 
tion, and I have noticed these. In lakes long dammed for lum- 
bering purposes the marginal trees are killed, fall over, and 
float around half water-logged. When the waves roll these over, 
their irregular shapes, dark slimy surfaces, and occasional 
projecting roots make them resemble somewhat a long slender 
animal moving in the water. Again, on the mud bottoms of 
our northern lakes, one often sees long sinuous troughs of 
serpentine suggestion, really made by moose, which wallow 
there for hours together on warm summer days (compare the 
“ furrows in the sand” of the accompanying footnote). More 
serpent-suggestive still are the beaver paths made by those 
animals from one pond to another, — naked paths rounded in 
contour and winding close to the ground through overhanging 
, ]: 
li 
*As illustration of the local tales about this Monster, I copy the following from my 
note-book of the year 1891. Mr. McCartney, an observant and well-informed resident 
of Red Rock, Charlotte County, said that some twenty years ago he often saw the Monster 
of Lake Utopia while lumbering there; it was dark red in color, the part showing above 
water was twenty< feet long (about) and as big around as a small hogshead ; it had two large 
flapping affairs like fins; no head was ever shown; it was much like a large eel; it never 
let anyone get near it but was often seen by lumbermen from the shore; he had seen it 
many times with his own eyes; he had also seen or heard of great furrows in the sand which 
it had made; it disappeared about eighteen years ago and has not since been heard of 
by anyone. 
