A D wight, Summer Birds oj Prince Ed-ward Island. \_\Ln. 



resents here as elsewhere the spreading of civilization that destroys 

 utterly the forest of its own generation and takes no thought for 

 the possible necessities of the future. Before the woodman's axe, 

 the evergreen forest has melted away in many parts of our conti- 

 nent never to return, its place being taken, as is well known, 

 by deciduous trees, they suffering in their turn, and this process 

 is now well advanced even on Prince Edward Island. 



The native trees are chiefly coniferse and more than nine 

 tenths of them spruce {Picea nigra and P. alba) and fir {Abies 

 balsamea). Among the more abundant deciduous trees are 

 maples (chiefly Acer saccharinurn) , birches {Bettda lenta, 

 B. lutea, and B. papyri/era^ all in considerable numbers), 

 beeches {Fagns ferruginea), and some of the willows and 

 poplars. Of the shrubs the heath family is well represented, 

 especially by the genera Vaccinium (blueberries), Ledum (Lab- 

 rador tea), and Kalmia {K. angzistifolia, sheep laurel). 

 Alders are generally distributed. As to the herbaceous plants, 

 thev are those of the northern woods and fields. It is said 

 that some plants of the adjacent mainland are not found 

 on the island. In other words, the twenty miles or so of the 

 Straits of Northumberland act as a barrier to the possible 

 tinge of more southern forms, and the same may influence the 

 northward range of certain species of birds more or less common 

 on the mainland. One may find fragrant banks of the tiny, nod- 

 ding Linncea, pastures red with sorrel {Rumex acetosella), 

 swamps blue with iris {Iris versicolor) , clearings green with 

 coarse ferns, beneath which gray mosses and clumps of the 

 scarlet bunchberry ( Cornus canadensis) may be found, and the 

 dark evergreen woods are carpeted with the greenest of mosses. 

 There are many other Uees and bushes, notably larch {Larix 

 americana) and arbor vita; ( Thtcya occidentalis) which are 

 rather common locally, but they are not especially conspicuous 

 features, and I merely wish to call attention to certain parts of 

 the flora to indicate in a very general way its character. There 

 are many tracts of second-growth, usually almost wholly beech 

 or maple which, if small, are shunned by birds, and nowhere can 

 one wander far without entering tracts of timber, from which per- 

 haps only the larger trees have been culled. When fire runs 

 through timber, dead and blackened trunks are left that in a few 

 years become, by the rotting away of their branches, the nionoto- 



