288 THE STORY OF A BIRD LOVER 



to Patagonia, conditions prevail similar to those 

 of the prairies of North America, and burrowing 

 owls and caracaras flourish. A specialized terri- 

 tory cropping out at far distant points on the 

 same hemisphere is accompanied with certain 

 specialized birds found nowhere else, but which 

 are common to all such regions. 



The warmer portion of the year in Florida is 

 enervating, and it was an advantage, from a 

 working point of view, to have a climatic change. 

 One excursion to a cooler and more bracing 

 climate was to the elevated region in the south- 

 western part of Virginia. Here the peaks of the 

 Blue Ridge attain a height of more than four 

 thousand feet. On almost the summit of one of 

 these (to be exact, forty-one hundred feet above 

 sea level) is an oval lake a mile long and a third 

 of a mile across at its broadest part. A fringe 

 of laurel reaches to the edge of the water, often 

 overhanging it. This changes insensibly into a 

 dense growth of luxuriant rhododendron, which, 

 in its turn, fades into a sombre hemlock forest. 

 At evening on a June day the color reflected 

 from this frame in the placid waters is alone 

 worth a long journey to look upon. The laurel 

 and rhododendron, always beautiful, are at their 

 best when in flower, and the mass of bloom and 

 depth of color seem to culminate here ; for in the 

 mirror all are duplicated and one sees four instead 



