of the WJiite Mountains. 97 



ham. The Linncea in this is true to its designation. For as if 

 it belonged to it to support the reputation of the great systematist 

 after whom it is named, it preserves its specific characters with 

 scarcely a tittle of change throughout all its great range. One 

 cannot see this hardy little survivor of the glacial period, so un- 

 changing yet so gentle, so modest yet so adventurous, so wide in 

 its migrations yet so choice in the selection of the mossy nooks 

 which it adorns with its pendant bells, and renders fragrant with 

 its delicious perfume, without praying that we might in these days 

 of petty distinctions and narrow views, be favoured with more 

 such minds as that of the great Swede, to combine the little de- 

 tails of the knowledge of natural history into grand views of the 

 unity of nature. 



Another plant which, being less dependent on shade and shel- 

 ter than the Linncea^ mounts still higher, is the cowberry or fox- 

 berry ( Vaccinium vitis-Idma). This also is both European and 

 American, and is probably a survivor of the Post-pliocene period. 

 It still occurs in at least one locality in the low country of Massa- 

 chusetts, and on the coast of Maine. It is found along the gran- 

 itic coast of Nova Scotia, and extends thence northward to the 

 arctic circle, being found at Great Bear Lake and at Unalaska. 

 This too is a most unchanging species, and the same statement 

 may be made respecting Ruhus Chamcemorus, the cloud-berry, 

 Empetrum nigrum^ the black crowberry. Ledum lati/olium, the 

 Labrador tree, Potentilla tridentata^ the three toothed cinque-foil, 

 which grows on ihe coast of Nova Scotia, and is found in the 

 nodules of the Ottawa clay, the same in every detail as on Mount 

 Washington, Vaccinium uUginosum, the bog bill berry, and V. 

 coespitosum, the dwarf billberry. Several of these too it will be 

 observed, are berry-bearing plants, whose seeds must be deposited 

 in all kinds of localities by birds. Yet they never occur in the 

 warm plains, nor do they show much tendency to vary in the dis- 

 tant and somewhat dissimilar places in which they occur. In the 

 case of most of these species, the most careful, comparison of spe- 

 cimens from Mount Washinijton with those from Labrador, shows 

 no tittle of difference. When we consider the vast length of time 

 during which such species have existed, and the multiplied vicis- 

 situdes through which they have passed, one is tempted to believe 

 that it is the tendency of the " struggle for existence" to confirm 

 and render permanent the characters of species rather than to 

 modify them. 

 Can. Nat. T Vol. YII. 



