AUTUMNAL COLOURING. 489 



them in flaming scarlet. With this gay assemblage of vivid colours the Canadian 

 firs mingle their deep, dark green, and the Weymouth Pines the dull bluish-green of 

 their needle-leaved summits. Where such a wood is developed with all its wealth 

 of species, and where there is an opportunity of seeing it pass slowly under view in 

 the soft light of a September day, as, for example, in a journey along the southern 

 shore of the Canadian lakes, the eye revels in the changing pictures of scenery and 

 in a wealth of colour such as it meets with in no other forest country. 



Of course the autumnal colouring is not limited to the deciduous foliage of the 

 trees and shrubs enumerated, but includes the perennial low shrubs and herbs. In 

 forest regions, however, only the large forms of the greater trees stand out, and the 

 low bush only rarely forms a characteristic feature in the autumn landscape. But 

 where lofty trees are absent, and where the clumps of low plants are the charac- 

 teristic feature, as in the regions of the Arctic flora, and especially in the mountain 

 slopes above the tree limit, the matter is quite different. Of these latter regions, 

 however, there is scarcely one which can rival the Alps of Central Europe in respect 

 of the autumnal change of colour of the vegetation. It is especially in those parts 

 of the Central Alps characterized by the great variety of their flora and their 

 wealth of Ericaceae, where strata of slate and limestone alternate or lie side by side, 

 that the spectacle here described passes with a splendour of which the ordinary 

 summer visitor to the Alps can form no conception. The time of commencement of 

 the display cannot be definitely given; it varies from year to year according to the 

 prevailing conditions of temperature and moisture. If even at the end of August 

 fresh-fallen snow remains for several days on the slopes above the tree limit, the 

 colouring may make its appearance as early as this; but if, as is usually the case, 

 the heights do not assume their white mantle of snow until the middle of 

 September, after a storm, and if during the latter half of the month the fresh snow 

 melts and a clear sky prevails over the mountain heights, then the autumnal change 

 of colour is retarded so much longer. Below, in the depths of the valley, which lie 

 for wide expanses already in the shade on account of the low position of the sun, 

 the ground remains continuously whitened by the frost, while up above, on the 

 southern slopes of the mountain heights, the night's frost vanishes with the first 

 glimpses of the sun, and soft breezes blow over them throughout the day. 

 Ptarmigans and swarms of birds of passage journeying over the Alpine passes, but 

 stopping here for a short rest, are busy in picking off the berries from the low 

 bushes which cover the slopes in great abundance; but the butterflies which were 

 so active in the summer among the Alpine flowers have vanished; here and there 

 isolated scabiouses and the dark spikes of the late-blooming Gnaphalium still 

 linger, but everything else is in fruit, and the procession of the flowers is past. 

 And yet the slopes have all the brightness of summer meadows, which are 

 adorned with innumerable flowers. The deciduous foliage of the low shrubs and 

 herbs, and especially that of the stunted thick-carpeting bushes (whose materials 

 are conveyed into the woody branches and underground stem-structures) attains 

 even in this short time red, violet, and yellow tints, which are in no wise inferior 



