with the creatures, whose white scuts might be
seen flitting and disappearing by dozens in every
glade and opening of the wide beautiful park,
with its slow river, its forest-like woods, its
silent grass-grown drives, now and then
unexpectedly blocked up by a fallen tree, or
obstructed by a fox earth or badger hole, of whose
presence no one but the beasts of the wood, or a
stray poacher, perhaps, became aware for months.
A sad, lonely, lovely place, which so impressed
my childhood, that even now when I think of it
there returns a sense of the mysterious, half-
terrified, fascination some of its most solitary
spots had for me. I remember how, when quite
a little child, I used to wander to them alone,
timidly looking and listening, gaining courage
by degrees to lie on the grass, and watch

The freshness of the space of heaven above,
Edged round with dark tree-tops, through which a dove
Would often beat its wings, and often too
A little cloud would fleet across the blue.

And so remain entranced till a sound—the
sudden whirr of a bird's wings, startled to find
the solitude of the place invaded, the rush of a
rabbit through the dead leaves, the beat of
deer's hoofs, the creaking of an infirm tree,
would suddenly fill me with the unreasoning
panic that often seizes a child's mind without
any sufficient cause, where a moment before all
was peace and security—would cause me to
spring to my feet, and fly homeward at the top
of my speed, panting, trembling, yet ashamed to
own the cause of my emotion.

Later comes a vision of other woods, other
fields, other streams, wilder far than those of my
first memories; for between the two roll miles
upon miles of Atlantic billows.

Far away, into regions hardly trodden by the
foot of the European, stretch the woods; into
the far wilderness roll the prairies; the fountain-
heads of the rivers rise, who shall say where?
Here is good cause for caution, if not alarm;
often have I come on a tree, with bark newly
scratched and torn by the claws of a bear, tufts
of whose black hair would be found adhering to
some jagged cleft; lynxes and loup-cerviers
were not unfrequently seen at short distances
from the homesteads; sometimes, even in the
home-fields, the morning found one or two dead
sheep, the bodies untouched, the throats only
torn, and sucked dry of blood, by some unknown
ravager, dainty in his horrible greed.

A great silence is in those woods; no bird
sings among the branches, which, so dense is the
forest, rarely wave with the breath of the wind.
At times a woodpecker taps hard and strong on
a decayed trunk; now and then a quick squirrel,
with chirp and bound springs by; or, if water be
near, a slow tortoise crawls through the rustling
leaves; or a spruce partridge, a bird as large, and
nearly as handsome as a pheasant, with a tuft
of black feathers, burnished with metallic
greens and blues at either side of its neck,
depressed or elevated at pleasure, struts among
the moss, hardly condescending to take wing,
till you are so close that a well-aimed stick
or stone can knock him over. Sweetly on
the ear, as you wander in the summer-tide,
breaks a singing ripple, and following the sound
you come on a clear liitle amber-brown brook,
trickling over mossy stones, golden sands and
smooth pebbles, warm to the touch where a
sunbeam falls ou them through arching boughs.
Glittering trout flit to and fro, or hang in mid-
current, poised on slowly-waving golden fins;
minnows dash about the shallows, awkward
cray-fish crawl among the stones, meteor-like
dragon-flies flash across the gleam and gloom.

"The Falls"—they had no other name—were
a favourite summer pilgrimage with me and
mine. Although the actual distance was not
great, the intricacies of the route, through
dense trackless forest, thick with unyielding
underbrush, and necessitating several fordings
of the winding stream into which we plunged
unhesitatingly, made the excursion a somewhat
formidable undertaking. But how well worth
the trouble! Suddenly the woods opened;
before us, lay a deep basin, bordered with glistening
sand; on either side, black rocks, softened
with patches of vivid moss, bright lichens, trailing
creepers, rose sheer from the water, crowned
with straight pines, and in front,

                  Like a downward smoke,
          Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn did go,

as the cascade softly glided from its shelf of
rock: no thunderous torrent, but a languid sheet
of glistening gauzy silver, so little disturbing the
basin below, that the ripples ceased to throb on
the surface ere the water kissed the shore.

Full of trout—so unsophisticated that a line,
a float, and a worm at the end of a hazel or
alder rod, captured them by dozens—I have
known them take a wild strawberry—was this
basin; and as we never visited the Falls with-
out such simple fishing-tackle, the rod being
supplied on the spot, the chief ingredient of our
sylvan feast was easily procured. The fire was
quickly lighted, the baskets were opened, the
potato-pot was hung over the blaze, the frying-
pan was prepared, and the hapless trout
transferred in a few minutes from the rippling pool
to the hissing lard. To spare the feelings of
sensitive readers, I should premise that as soon
as the fish were taken from the water they were
killed by putting a finger into the mouth and
bending the head upward; this, breaking the
vertebral column, causes instant death.

Bright were the prairies, intersected with
singing rills, for that part of British North
America is " a land of streams," dotted, as are
also the woods, especially in spring, with lovely
wild flowers—the pink exquisitely scented
almond bell; violets, blue and white; twinberry,
with polished leaf, blossoms like jasmine
stars, always growing in pairs, and succeeded
by the scarlet fruit, whose double growth gives
it its name; dog-tooth violets; moccasin flowers;
stately tiger-lilies; snowy crocus-like bloodroot,
whose bulb, when broken, emits thick
crimson drops, said to be valuable in medicine;