60 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE. 



I 



and Bachman, at long intervals, we may therefore define 

 its limits on tlie eastern coasts of North America as lying 

 between 43° 30' and the fiftieth parallel of latitude. 



In following the lines of limitation of the species 

 across the continent, we perceive an easy guide in con- 

 sidering its natural vegetation. As regards the general 

 features of the forests which the moose affects, we find 

 them principally characterised by the presence of the fir 

 tribe and their associations of damp swamps and soft 

 open bogs, provided that they are sufficiently removed 

 from the region of perpetual ground-frost to allow of the 

 requisite growth of deciduous shrubs and trees on which 

 the animal subsists. The best indication, therefore, of 

 the dispersion of the moose through the interior of the 

 continent is afforded by tracing the development of the 

 forest southwards from the northern limit of the growth 

 of trees. 



The North American forest has its most arctic exten- 

 sion in the north-west, where it is almost altogether 

 comjDosed of white spruce (Abies alba), a conifer which, 

 when met with in far more genial latitudes, appears to 

 prefer bleak and exposed situations. Several species of 

 Salix fringe the river banks, and feeding on these we first 

 find the moose, even on the shores of the Arctic Sea, 

 where Franklin states it to have been seen at the mouth 

 of the Mackenzie, in latitude 69°. Further to the east- 

 ward Eichardson assigns 65° as the highest limit of its 

 range ; and in this direction it follows the general course 

 of the coniferous forest in its rapid recession from the 

 arctic circle, determined by the line of perpetual ground- 

 frost, which comes down on the Atlantic sea-board to the 

 fifty-ninth parallel, cutting off a large section of Labra- 



