THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 
237 
the hard-wood trees. I thought that I saw a light-col¬ 
ored object move along the opposite or northern shore, 
four or five miles distant. He did not know what it 
could be, unless it were a moose, though he had never 
seen a white one; but he said that he could distinguish a 
moose “ anywhere on shore, clear across the lake.” 
Hounding a point, we stood across a bay for a mile and 
a half or two miles, toward a large island, three or four 
miles down the lake. We met with ephemerae (shad-fly) 
midway, about a mile from the shore, and they evident¬ 
ly fly over the whole lake. On Moosehead I had seen a 
large devil’s-needle half a mile from the shore, coming 
from the middle of the lake, where it was three or four 
miles wide at least. It had probably crossed. But at 
last, of course, you come to lakes so large that an insect 
cannot fly across them ; and this, perhaps, will serve to 
distinguish a large lake from a small one. 
We landed on the southeast side of the island, which 
was rather elevated, and densely wooded, with a rocky 
shore, in season for an early dinner. Somebody had 
camped there not long before, and left the frame on which 
they stretched a moose-hide, which our Indian criticised 
severely, thinking it showed but little woodcraft. Here 
were plenty of the shells of crayfish, or fresh-water lob¬ 
sters, which had been washed ashore, such as have given 
a name to some ponds and streams. They are commonly 
four or five inches long. The Indian proceeded at once 
to cut a canoe-birch, slanted it up against another tree 
on the shore, tying it with a withe, and lay down to sleep 
in its shade. 
When we were on the Caucomgomoc, he recommended 
to us a new way home, the very one which we had first 
thought of, by the St. John. He even said that it was 
