THE 



CANADIAN NATURALIST. 



I. 



JANUARY 1st. 



Pleasures of Natural History. — Plan of investigation. — ^Aerial Spiculae. 

 — Expansive power of Frost in Trees. — Opacity of Snow — Blue Tint. 

 — Hairy Woodpecker — Food, Manners, Services. — Other Species of 

 Picvs — their Conformation. — Black-timbered Land. — White Pine. — 

 Spruce. — Hairy Lichen. — Hemlock. — Balsam — its height. — Tamarack. 

 — Strobiles. — White Cedar — Rails. — Variety in Forms of Trees — In- 

 stances : Rock Maple — Beech — Basswood — Elm — Ash — Butternut — 

 Birch — Cherry — Poplar — Bahn of Gilead. — Variety in all created 

 Objects. 



Fatheb. — My son, you have begun to taste the delights 

 of the study of Nature, and have found it a pleasant and 

 a flowery path to pursue ; but as your time since the age 

 of understanding has been spent in England, your personal 

 acquaintance with our natural history must of necessity be 

 slight and limited. I mean your out-of-door researches; 

 which have been confined to the desultory observations 

 you have made during the few months that have elapsed 

 since your arrival in this country. An attentive eye, it is 

 true, cannot fail to acquire information, ever new, among 

 -the countless objects of creation, at all times, and under all 

 circumstances ; but the more fully to avail ourselves of our 



