where the large and wide river Saskatchewan, rising in the Rocky Mountains, flows eastward into Lake Winnipeg. Along the southern border of this region the Assiniboine River, also of considerable size, flows into the Red River at Fort Garry, in the Selkirk settlement. The prairie country indeed extends further than the Red River, up to the Lake of the Woods. The name of the Fertile Belt has been properly given to it. Commencing at the Lake of the Woods, it stretches westward for 800 miles, and averages from 80 to upwards of 100 miles in width. The area of this extraordinary belt of rich soil and pasturage is about 40,000,000 of acres. Including the adjacent fertile districts, the area may be estimated at not less than 80,000 square miles, or considerably more fertile land than the whole of Canada is supposed to contain. It rises gradually towards the west, so that the traveller is surprised to find how speedily he has gained the passes which lead him over the Rocky Mountains into the territory of British Columbia on their western side-- often indeed before he has realised the fact that he has crossed the boundary-line. The Fertile Belt is considerably more to the south than the British Islands, though, as the western hemisphere is subject to greater alternations of heat and cold than the eastern, there is a vast difference in temperature between the summer and winter. While in winter the whole region is covered thickly with snow, in summer the heat is so great that Indian-corn and other cereals, as well as all fruits, ripen with great rapidity. The whole of this fertile region, which now forms part of the Canadian Dominion, is about to be opened to colonisation; and through it will be carried the great high road which will connect the British provinces on the Pacific with those of the Atlantic. ANIMAL LIFE ON THE FERTILE BELT.