at mud-turtle which had
secreted himself under the boat in the night. Ducks and geese frequent
it in the spring and fall, the white-bellied swallows (Hirundo bicolor)
skim over it, and the peetweets (Totanus macularius) "teeter" along its
stony shores all summer. I have sometimes disturbed a fish hawk sitting
on a white pine over the water; but I doubt if it is ever profaned by
the wind of a gull, like Fair Haven. At most, it tolerates one annual
loon. These are all the animals of consequence which frequent it now.

You may see from a boat, in calm weather, near the sandy eastern shore,
where the water is eight or ten feet deep, and also in some other parts
of the pond, some circular heaps half a dozen feet in diameter by a foot
in height, consisting of small stones less than a hen's egg in size,
where all around is bare sand. At first you wonder if the Indians
could have formed them on the ice for any purpose, and so, when the ice
melted, they sank to the bottom; but they are too regular and some of
them plainly too fresh for that. They are similar to those found in
rivers; but as there are no suckers nor lampreys here, I know not by
what fish they could be made. Perhaps they are the nests of the chivin.
These lend a pleasing mystery to the bottom.

The shore is irregular enough not to be monotonous. I have in my mind's
eye the western, indented with deep bays, the bolder northern, and the
beautifully scalloped southern shore, where successive capes overlap
each other and suggest unexplored coves between. The forest has never
so good a setting, nor is so distinctly beautiful, as when seen from the
middle of a small lake amid hills which rise from the water's edge; for
the water in which it is reflected not only makes the best foreground in
such a case, but, with its winding shore, the most natural and agreeable
boundary to it. There is no rawness nor imperfection in its edge there,
as where the axe has cleared a part, or a cultivated field abuts on it.
The trees have ample room to expand on the water side, and each sends
forth its most vigorous branch in that direction. There Nature has woven
a natural selvage, and the eye rises by just gradations from the low
shrubs of the shore to the highest trees. There are few traces of man's
hand to be seen. The water laves the shore as it did a thousand years
ago.

A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is
earth's eye; looking into which the behold