2 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [15:1— Jan., 1919, 



think of it, it always suggests its surroundings. It reminds me of 

 the rocks and cliffs upon which it stands, the storms and sunshine 

 of the Alps and the valleys upon which it looks — and surely no 

 description of it would be complete, without casting at least a 

 glance on its setting. Mountains, icefields, valleys and chasms 

 have the same relation to the mountain pine as the desert to the 

 Bedouin or the far North to the Esquimos. The one lends color to 

 the other ; let us therefore have a look at any of these valleys : 



Imagine yourself to be up in the mountains, on some such 

 beautiful summer day, in which the air is so clean and serene, the 

 glaciers and icefields literally so silver and golden and the valleys 

 below so green and lovely that you actually hope that the day 

 might never end and that it might last forever. Picture yourself 

 as on the top of some such cliff as is occupied by the Pine. You 

 are sitting on its utmost edge, with your feet hanging down, so as 

 to get a full view of the valley below, and not to miss that part of 

 the scenery that otherwise might be concealed below the ledge. 

 You are sitting right next to the pine and you may, in order to feel 

 perfectly secure, put your arm around one of its lower branches. 



The sun is just rising. The rocks and ice fields of the higher 

 regions assume a golden brown. The atmosphere is clear and the 

 valleys below silent and calm and the shadows below retreat in 

 measures as the sun line descends from the mountains. The sun. 

 shines fully an hour earlier on top of the mountains than in the 

 valley. Now the sun line has reached the mountain pine and 

 everything around it stands in a flood of silvery light. The valleys 

 below now show signs of life, straight colimins of smoke rise from 

 the little brown houses and tiny points are seen moving away. 

 These are the mountaineers going to their work. The ear now 

 catches sounds which before escaped its attention. First the 

 murmuring of far off waterfalls, then the chimeing of bells and 

 then all of a sudden you hear a sound so sweet and pure that it 

 cannot be described, and, you must let me digress a moment to tell 

 you of the Yodler. Of all the songs I know, none is sweeter and 

 more harmonious than the song of the Swiss mountaineer. The 

 "yodle," as it is commonly called, has a charm all of its own; a 

 charm that makes it about as much different from our American 

 ragtime and modem songs as the mountains and icefields differen- 

 tiate the Alps from the empty plains of a desert. The yodle, one 

 might say, is almost inseparable from the mountains. It is a true 



