THE PRIMITIVE FOREST. 3 



white man had opened to them new fields for their sub- 

 sistence. In the borders of these openings, the woods 

 in early summer were filled with a sweet and novel min- 

 strelsy, contrasting delightfully with the silence of the 

 deeper forest. The notes of the birds were wild varia- 

 tions of those which were familiar to the Pilgrim in his 

 native land, and inspired him with delight amidst the 

 all-prevailing sadness of woods that presented on the 

 one hand scenes both grand and beautiful, and teemed on 

 the other with horrors which only the pioneer of the des- 

 ert could describe. 



The whole continent, at the time of its discovery, from 

 the coast to the Great American Desert, was one vast 

 hunting-ground, where the nomadic inhabitants obtained 

 their subsistence from the chase of countless herds of 

 deer and buffalo. At this period the climate had not 

 been modified by the operations of man upon the forest. 

 It was less variable than now, and the temperature cor- 

 responded more definitely with the degrees of latitude. 

 The winter was a season of more invariable cold, less in- 

 terrupted by thaws. In New England and the other 

 Northern States, snow fell in the early part of De- 

 cember, and lay on the ground until April, when the 

 spring opened suddenly, and was not followed by those 

 vicissitudes that mark the season at the present era. 

 Such was the true forest climate. May-day came gar- 

 landed with flowers, lighted with sunshine, and breathing 

 the odors of a true spring. It was then easy to foretell 

 what the next season would be from its character the pre- 

 ceding years. Autumn was not then, as we have often 

 seen it, extended into winter. The limits of each season 

 were more precisely defined, - The continent was an- 

 nually visited by the Indian summer, that came, without 

 fail, immediately after the fall of the leaf and the first 

 hard frosts of November. This short season of mild and 



