way, and a solitary wild pigeon shot through the woods in front of us,
recalling the nests we had seen on the East Branch,--little
scaffoldings of twigs scattered all through the trees.

It was nearly noon when we struck the West Branch, and the sun was
scalding hot. We knew that two and three pound trout had been taken
there, and yet we wet not a line in its waters. The scene was
primitive, and carried one back to the days of his grandfather, stumpy
fields, log fences, log houses and barns. A boy twelve or thirteen
years old came out of a house ahead of us eating a piece of bread and
butter. We soon overtook him and held converse with him. He knew the
land well, and what there was in the woods and the waters. He had
walked out to the railroad station, fourteen miles distant, to see the
cars, and back the same day. I asked him about the flies and
mosquitoes, etc. He said they were all gone except the "blunder-heads;"
there were some of them left yet.

"What are blunder-heads?" I inquired, sniffing new game.

"The pesky little fly that gets into your eye when you are a-fishing."

Ah, yes! I knew him well. We had got acquainted some days before, and I
thanked the boy for the name. It is an insect that hovers before your
eye as you thread the streams, and you are forever vaguely brushing at
it under the delusion that it is a little spider suspended from your
hat-brim; and just as you want to see clearest, into your eye it goes,
head and ears, and is caught between the lids. You miss your cast, but
you catch a "blunder-head."

We paused under a bridge at the mouth of Biscuit Brook and ate our