Part 18

From Rivière du Loup, where we passed the night and ate our first "Tommy-cods," our thread of travel makes a big loop around New Brunswick to St. John, thence out and down through Maine to Boston,--a thread upon which many delightful excursions and reminiscences might be strung. We traversed the whole of the valley of the Metapedia, and passed the doors of many famous salmon streams and rivers, and heard everywhere the talk they inspire; one could not take a nap in the car for the excitement of the big fish stories he was obliged to overhear.

The Metapedia is a most enticing-looking stream; its waters are as colorless as melted snow; I could easily have seen the salmon in it as we shot along, if they had come out from their hiding-places. It was the first white-water stream we had seen since leaving the Catskills; for all the Canadian streams are black or brown, either from the iron in the soil or from the leechings of the spruce swamps. But in New Brunswick we saw only these clear, silver-shod streams; I imagined they had a different ring or tone also. The Metapedia is deficient in good pools in its lower portions; its limpid waters flowing with a tranquil murmur over its wide, evenly paved bed for miles at a stretch. The salmon pass over these shallows by night and rest in the pools by day. The Restigouche, which it joins, and which is a famous salmon stream and the father of famous salmon streams, is of the same complexion and a delight to look upon. There is a noted pool where the two join, and one can sit upon the railroad bridge and count the noble fish in the lucid depths below. The valley here is fertile, and has a cultivated, well-kept look.

We passed the Jacquet, the Belledune, the Nepissisquit, the Miramichi ("happy retreat") in the night, and have only their bird-call names to report.

INDEX

Anemone.

Angler, a born; eagerness of the.

Arbutus.

Asters.

Audubon, John James.

Aurora borealis, an.

Balsam Lake.

Barrington, Daines, his table of English song-birds.

Basswood, or linden.

Bear, black.

Beaverkill, the; trouting on.

Bee. See Bumblebee and Honeybee.

Berries.

Berrying.

Big Ingin River.

Birch, yellow.

Birds, eyes of; imperfect singers among; human significance of; songs of English; relative pugnaciousness of English and American; species common to Europe and America; small and large editions of various species of; their ingenuity in the concealment of their nests.

Birds of prey.

Biscuit Brook.

Blackbird, European; notes of.

Blackbird, red-winged. See Starling, red-shouldered.

Bloodroot.

Bluebird (Sialia sialis), struggling with a cicada; courting; cares of housekeeping; and screech owl; notes of; nest of.

Blunder-heads.