256 HANDBOOK OF NATURE STUDY 



The pine forest seems to have taken us to a different 

 world. In one region we find dense forests of almost noth- 

 ing else but Labrador Pine. As far as our eye can pene- 

 trate we see the maze of gray, lichen-covered branches and 

 tall, slim trunks. We are tempted to go on and on, hoping 

 to come to the end of these silent and gloomy woods. All 

 the trees are of nearly the same height, the same thickness, 

 and show the same mode of branching. After we have 

 walked for miles, we come upon a poplar thicket or upon 

 a growth of younger pines ; but they only mark the path of 

 a conflagration which swept through the primeval forest. 

 Now we see an opening in the thicket, and suddenly we 

 stand on the shore of a sparkling lake. The tall, waving 

 rushes, the broad-leaved lilies, the murmur of the rippling 

 waters, the blue sky, with its white, floating clouds reflected 

 from the glassy expanse of strength- and health-giving waters, 

 are the very impersonation of perfect rest, quiet, and happi- 

 ness. And all around this sparkling gem grow the dark, 

 melancholy pines. Their trunks are hoary with age, a 

 bluish haze hangs over their tops ; the eye tries in vain to 

 reach the end of the forest. Lumbermen and hunters tell 

 us that there is nothing but Jack Pine, or Scrub Pine as 

 they often call them, for fifty miles around us. 



Could we spend a month in the pine regions of our 

 Northern States, we should also come upon large forests 

 of grand White Pines or into airy groves of round-topped 

 columns of Red Pines. Unless we were experienced woods- 

 men, we should, no doubt, lose ourselves in the dark Tam- 

 arack and Cedar swamps, where the trees stand only a few 

 feet apart and where fallen trunks and deep holes burned 

 into the ground by former forest fires make travelling 

 almost impossible. These swamps, the terror of woodsmen 

 and hunters, are the home and safe retreat of the moose, 

 the grand monarch of our forests. 



