'Even your great Doctor Johnson has stated that swallows spend the winter at the bottom of the streams, forgetting that they might find it a rather slippery place to hang on to and a winter a long time to hold their breaths.

Even Goldsmith has been divinely reckless in his treatment of 'Animated Nature.' "'I am surprised, sir, at your familiarity with English authors,' he declared.

'When we think of America we are apt to think of savages and poverty and ignorance and log huts.' "'You forget, sir, that we have about all the best books and the leisure to read them,' I answered.
"'You undoubtedly have the best game,' said he.

'Tell us about the shooting and fishing.' "I told of the deer, the moose and the caribou, all of which I had killed, and of our fishing on the long river of the north with a lure made of the feathers of a woodpecker, and of covering the bottom of our canoe with beautiful speckled fish.

All this warmed the heart of Sir Benjamin who questioned me as to every detail in my experience on trail and river.