36 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



Another feature of the surroundings at Carlisle, 

 which doubtless was of prime importance, was the fact 

 that the meadows, marshes, streams and ponds, the 

 wooded hills and limestone bluffs, of the region within 

 twenty miles of the town, afforded attractions to myriads 

 of birds, including, at the migratory seasons, waterfowl 

 of many kinds, besides the quail, grouse and other game 

 peculiar to field and forest. 



It is positively astonishing to him who is familiar 

 only with the depleted fauna of to-day, to read over the 

 almost daily record of birds shot or seen by Baird, 

 which occur in his early diaries. When other members 

 of the family, such as his uncles, went out, it seems that 

 a good bag of quail, snipe, woodcock, or waterfowl, was 

 obtained as a matter of course. 



The streams and lakes seem also to have yielded a 

 bountiful supply of turtles, salamanders and fishes, while 

 snakes, chiefly harmless, were not of rare occurrence. 

 Moreover, the limestone of the region in many places 

 was replete with fossils, often in an excellent state of 

 preservation. On the whole, for anyone with the taste 

 for natural history, the Cumberland Valley about Carlisle 

 seems to have been almost ideally supplied with material 

 for study. 3 



3 The following description, taken from Baird's own publication in 

 the Literary Record of the Linnean Association of Pennsylvania Col- 

 lege, 1845, No. 4, p. 17, will give the reader a clear idea of the region: 



"Briefly to characterize Cumberland county, it consists of a 

 section of the great Cumberland valley, twelve miles wide, and about 

 forty long, bounded on the north by the Kittatinny or North Moun- 

 tain; on the south, by the South Mountain, and on the east by the 

 Susquehanna river. The South Mountain is composed of the various 

 primary rocks, mica slate, chlorite, quartz and sandstone, the white 

 fucoidal sandstone of Prof. Rogers forming its northern ridges. 



