a shot at them from the attic window as they flew
along the course of the stream. So lonely was the hut, that the mink
would often haunt it in search of such small plunder as attracts his
kind; and once I encountered upon the threshold of it a milk-snake about
five feet long, which disappeared through the chinks of the flooring
before I could administer to it the _coup de grace_ by which man feels
it to be his stern duty to cut short the serpentine career.

There is a wonderful fascination in these grand old Canadian woods for
sportsmen, whose wildest experiences of their craft, previous to their
essay in it there, had been associated with stalking deer upon Highland
mountains, or shooting grouse upon the moors. The solitude of woods is
of a more impressive character, I think, than that of bare
mountains,--in countries, at least, where one may expect to find traces
of civilized man. From mountain peaks there is a wide range of view, in
which some points of guidance to the traveller are usually visible.
Wandering in the woods is much like groping one's way in the dark; and I
know by experience how easy it is for an explorer not well accustomed to
them to keep moving in circles, until, after hours of what he imagined
to be a straight course, he finds himself back again at some wood-mark
long since passed, instead of the place for which he was bound. There is
something decidedly sensational in this, especially in winter, as
anybody who has ever experienced it will allow. The sounds of the forest
are impressive, too, while its stillness, at times almost absolute, is
painful. In the mystery of its voices lies a good deal of the
fascination of the wood. In the clear, frosty air of winter the cry of
the great black woodpecker rings out like an elfin laugh, as he wings
his curved way through the gray stems in quest of some skeleton tree.
Explosions caused by the frost are heard among the branches of the
trees. They are sometimes as loud as pistol-shots, and--as I can aver
from my own observation--the deer, after they have become accustomed to
them, will not bound away at the crack of a rifle, and the hunter will
often get several shots at one herd, by keeping close in his ambush. But
the slightest sound of a twig beneath his moccason, or the tinkle of the
powder-flask against the muzzle of the rifle as he reloads, will send
the herd crashing and flashing away. In the stillness of a summer
evening there is something very weird in