PLANTS AND ANIMALS OF THE ATLANTIC AND GULF STATES 



BY DR. R. W. SHUFELDT, C.M.Z.S. 



FROM the Atlantic to the Pacific, all through the 

 northern and middle tiers of states, there is very 

 little flower collecting to be done during the month 

 of December, while it is just the reverse in the case of 

 those regions of the country bordering upon the Gulf 

 of Mexico and the South Atlantic Ocean. In the latter 

 area many plants, and some trees, are in full bloom ; a 

 long list of flowers are there to be studied, and, inci- 

 dentally, not a few very interesting animals. When the 

 country is covered with snow in the North, and the tem- 

 perature rarely rises above the fifties, we never, as a 

 matter of course, meet with any flowers, while occasion- 

 ally we do run across various kinds of seed-pods, and 

 sometimes remnants of plants, all of which are worthy of 

 close observation and study. 



As the holiday season comes on war or no war and 

 the Christmas idea comes into the minds of the people, 

 there is no plant or tree that appeals to us more forcibly 

 than does the well-known American holly. A beautiful 

 example of this is presented in Figure 1. Throughout 

 the region where this tree or shrub grows more particu- 

 larly in the neighborhood of our cities it seems to stand 

 much in need of Federal protection, for the reason that 

 the gatherers of its berried branches, in order to meet 

 the demand of the market for it during the holiday sea- 

 son, have ruined and mutilated thousands of its kind. It 



is a pitiful sight to observe the miserable, semi-limbless 

 stumps of the holly in the fields, along the roadsides, and 

 at the edges of some of our forests. This vandalism is 

 carried on each year for miles about any one of our large 

 northern cities. 



Neltje Bianchan, who has searched out some of the 

 ancient superstitions in regard to holly, very truly points 

 out for us that "happily we continue to borrow all the 

 beautiful Old World associations, poetical and legendary, 

 that cluster about the holly at Christmas lime, although 

 our native tree furnishes most of our holiday decorations. 

 As far back as Pliny's day, the European holly had all 

 manner of supernatural qualities attributed to it ; its in- 

 significant little flowers caused water to freeze, he tells 

 us ; because it was believed to repel lightning, the Romans 

 planted it near their houses ; and a branch of it thrown 

 after any refractory animal, even if it did not hit him, 

 would subdue him instantly, and cause him to lie down 

 meekly beside the stick ! Can it be that the Italian peas- 

 ants, who still believe cattle kneel in their stalls at mid- 

 night on the anniversary of Jesus' birth, decorate the 

 mangers on Christmas Eve with holly, among other 

 plants, because of a survival of this old pagan notion 

 about its subduing effect on animals?" 



The leaves of the American holly remain on the tree 

 for three years ; and we use the wood, which very closely 



A RELIC OF THE PAST 

 Fig. U In the National Zoological Paric, at Washington, we find many trees and animals well worthy of our closest study; later on, some of 

 these willbe referred to in greater detail. Tlie rustic bridge here shown spanned one of the streams in that beautiful preserve. About a 

 year ago it was replaced by a substantial stone one, so this picture is both historical and unique. 



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