unmerited.

When several of these birds are singing together on some still, lovely evening in June the effect of their notes, taken together with the beauty of their surroundings, produces a feeling of content and happiness that is indescribable and the ideas that then become associated with the birds' notes are inseparable from them afterwards so that they are to a certain extent revived each time we hear the song. But the song itself is not the triumph of bird music it is sometimes said to be; however, one must not be too analytical in these things and so long as the pleasant impression is produced it

matters little what items are required to produce it. This thrush is generally very abundant throughout the country, breeding in all wooded places.

The nest, a rather loosely built affair, is placed in a bush near the ground. The eggs are four or five, of a beautiful greenish blue colour.

The Veeries leave us quite early, most of them having gone by the twenty-fifth of August, though they do not go so far south as many birds that stay much later. They winter principally south of the United States; some few, however, stay in the Gulf States and Florida.

ing with that indifferent success so trying to ambitious youth; but the laurel leaves soon unfolded in the form of some excellent translations made for a column in the Montreal Gazette, edited by John Lesperance, who afterward. wrote of the subject of this sketch as being "One of the most substantial contributors to Canadian literature."

Mr. McLennan values verse translation most highly as training for a proper appreciation of the comparative value of words and propriety of expression; his efforts in this connection also having a practical outcome in the shape of a little volume entitled "Songs of Old Canada," which was published by Dawson in 1886. This was followed by a series of stories illustrative of Canadian life told by one, Melchior, in his limited vocabulary of English and published in Harper's Magazine in 1891-92.

For some two years Mr. McLennan worked on the period from 1642 to 1700, confining himself to Montreal and to the history of certain families; only publishing, however, a monograph on Dulhut, the explorer, which appeared in Harper's Magazine, one on Basset, the first Canadian notary, in Le CanadaFrançais, and a sketch of early Montreal in the Board of Trade Souvenir of

1893. From work of similar description on the French Revolution, Mr. McLennan evolved an interesting series of short stories, "As told to His Grace," also brought out in Harper's Magazine.

Mr. McLennan's training as a notary has unquestionably been of immense. value to him in his historical work, and to this and his knowledge of the forms and nature of old documents, much of his successful and masterly handling of intricate problems may justly be attri

buted.

That Mr. McLennan's intimacy with certain historical periods ensures perpetual life to his writings is beyond doubt, and it has likewise proved an educational stimulant to the large mass of readers to whom study of any description is irksome, unless relieved by pleasing incident and sustained interest. His two books, "Spanish John," and the recently published "Span o' Life," written in collaboration with Miss Mcllwraith, of Hamilton, both historical novels," whose elegance of language and purity of style suggest the art of the ever-lamented Robert Louis Stevenson.

are

Mr. McLennan holds many positions and has varied interests; he is the official notary of the Bank of Montreal, is a representative fellow in law of McGill University, a member of the Council of the Art Association of Montreal, and President of the Fraser Institute of that city.

Of his poems much might be written did space permit - but the world will sway to the rhythm of the song, from the "Span o' Life," lately set to music by Mr. Frederick F. Bullard, beginning

In Spanish hands I've bent and swung

With Spanish grace and

skill;

Nor braid eneugh this weary warld

To part my love frae me."

The graphic pen pictures of old Canada to be found throughout this book are invaluable, and will only become the more so with the march of time. Who has ever pictured Louisbourg, always associated mentally with the French king's question,

"Are the streets paved with gold?" with this "Louisbourg, a pretentious and costly fortification, but miserably situate and falling to decay for want of the most necessary repairs. There it was, shut in on the one hand by the monotonous sea, wild and threatening with its ice, and snow and storm in winter, sad and depressing with its mournful fog in summer; and on the other by an unbroken wilderness of rock and firs"?

Two more intensely interesting views of the past are given us of those long June days in Quebec, waiting the coming of the English. "There the white coats of the regulars mingled with the blue and grey of the Canadians and volunteers. Indians stalked or squatted about, taking no part in a labour they could not understand," and "Before this restless, toiling mass swept the great empty river, changing its colour with every change of sky which floated over it, while behind stretched the beautiful valley of the St. Charles, its gentle upward sweep of woods broken only by the green fields and white walls of Charlesbourg until it met the range of blue and purple hills which guards it to the north.

At a

point opposite where we were standing the nearer mountains opened out and shewed a succession of golden hills which seemed, in the tender evening light, as the gates of some heavenly country where all was peace, and the rumour of war could never enter."

In this author's study there is a conviction that its occupant has found a dearly loved life work-that there, with his favourite "masters of the pen," Sir Thomas Browne, Defoe, Le Sage, Froissart and, to use his own words, "our own Champlain and Dollier de Casson," surrounded by relics of the old Canada he is preserving and immortalizing, William McLennan will continue to work out the brilliant promise of his earlier years. The wide windows look out upon an awakened garden-from the scented screen of apple blossom the soothing hum of the bees mingles harmoniously with that of the great human hive without the gates as with exquisite appreciation come involuntarily to one's lips, Matthew Arnold's beautiful lines,

"Of toil, unsever'd from tranquillity! Of labour, that in lasting fruit outgrows Far noisier schemes, accomplished in repose."

E. Q. V.

peo

ple of Southern Ontario would be astonished to learn of the wonderful amount of game that still inhabits that portion of Ontario west of the Ottawa River and North of the Cana

he wants to replenish his larder. The greatest destruction of game is probably caused by wolves. In winter especially they run down and. destroy great numbers of deer; let an unlucky deer find itself on glare ice or partially crusted snow, with a pack of hungry wolves on its trail, and its fate is sealed.

But the wolf, save when surrounded by a crowd of ravenous companions, is an arrant coward, and so wary and cunning that it is almost impossible to take him, even in a trap. A few are poisoned during the winter as they hang around the lumber-camps, on the lookout for refuse. But the number taken must be very small; the bounty of ten dollars per scalp that the Government offers seems to be too meagre an inducement for systematic hunting, and these pests continue their depredations comparatively undisturbed.

Some still night you leave the bright

MOOSE STEAK AT A DISCOUNT.

dian Pacific main line, especially red deer, cariboo and moosethe "vanishing moose" of the pessimists is a myth. Here, away from the scrutiny of gamewardens and justices of the peace, game laws are more or less of a nullity; but they certainly are effective in this respect, however, that they deter parties from entering the district for the express purpose of hunting. The Indian may kil everything and anything he wants for his own consumption, but as the sale of hides and heads is prohibited, he hunts

voyageur-a portage!