44 FOSSIL FOOTMARKS OF BIRDS. 



transparent, though tinged with a pale brown colour, and 

 contains numerous fish. The region is inhabited by a number 

 of bears, who climb the trees in search of acorns and gum- 

 berries, breaking off the boughs of the oaks in order to obtain 

 the acorns ; these bears also kill hogs, and even cows. Occa- 

 sionally a solitary wolf is seen prowling over the morass, and 

 wild cats also clamber amid its woods. Even in summer, the 

 air, instead of being hot and pestiferous, is especially cool, the 

 evaporation continually going on in the wet spongy soil 

 generating an atmosphere resembling that of a region consider- 

 ably elevated above the level of the ocean. Canals have been 

 cut through this swamp. They are shaded by tall trees, 

 their branches almost joining across, and throwing a dark 

 shade on the water, which itself looks almost black, and adds 

 to the gloom of the region. Emerging from one of these 

 avenues into the bright sunlit lake, the aspect of the scenery 

 is like that of some beautiful fairyland. 



FOSSIL FOOTMARKS OF BIRDS. 



A considerable way to the north of this region, on the banks 

 of the Connecticut River, are beds of red sandstone, on the 

 different layers of which are found the footmarks of long 

 extinct birds. The beds in some parts are twenty -five feet 

 in thickness, composed of layer upon layer ; and on each of 

 these layers, when horizontally split, are found imprinted 

 these remarkable footmarks. This result could only have 

 been produced by the ^subsidence of the ground, fresh deposi- 

 tions of sand having taken place on the layers, on which the 

 birds walked after the subsidence. They must have been of 

 various sizes, some no larger than a small sand-piper, while 

 others, judging from their footprints, which measure no less 



