Notes. 125 



heavy pine sections. Several of them were seen at different 

 times during the summer by parties in different sections of the 

 park. Two of the rangers reported seeing a mother with a very 

 fine lot of chickens. They were enabled to examine them closely 

 se'eing them on two different occasions. The successful propaga- 

 tion of this famous Scotch grouse should be a great attraction to 

 the park and will furnish a new and useful game bird in that 

 district. 



The quantities of wood cut in the Adirondack and Catskill 

 forests during 1904 were 699,287,760 feet, spruce leading with 

 161 million feet, hemlock 69 million, white pine 36 million and 

 hardwoods 68 million. In the Adirondacks 481,876 cords were 

 used for pulpwood, four-fifths of which was spruce. The con- 

 sumption of wood for pulp has increased from 5,835,844 feet in 

 1890 to 289,125,600 feet in 1904. 



Of how much of the northern part of Canada can the same 

 description be given as the following, from a report of the Geo- 

 logical Survey on a portion of the Rainy River district : — 



" Comparatively a great part of the country embraced in the 

 area mapped has been ravaged by fire within the last half century. 

 These devastating fires, which do so much to mar the beauty of 

 the scener\' and destroy the timber, are too often caused by the 

 carelessness of explorers, prospectors and hunters. The Indians 

 are verv careful to extinguish their fires during the dry season, 

 but it is to be regretted that the fatali carelessness of others cannot 

 be checked. The amount of valuable timber thus destroyed is 

 mutely but strongly attested by the gigantic half-burned dead 

 pines which, towering in the air, add so nmch to the wildness and 

 desolateness of the scene. Where sufficient time has elapsed a 

 dense second growth has sprung up, consisting, in places, almost 

 entirely of jack pine, thickly clustered, sometimes of more thinly 

 scattered birches and poplars, but generally of all threo, with the 

 addition of spruce. Frequent clumps of Morway pine often 

 break the monotony of thei burnt countrw Tlu'Sf trees rcniani 

 unscathed, and where they are thickly clustered, have often arrest- 

 ed the progress of fires in that direction." 



