304 CAMP-FIRES OF A NATURALIST. 



called upon to give up tributes of musk- ox and polar 

 bear, while Mexico and the Gulf coast will be drawn 

 upon for phases of animal life peculiar to those sec- 

 tions. 



The ashes of the camp-fires from the Sierra Madre 

 and Sangre del Christo to the Cascade ranges, from 

 the Columbia River to the Lake of the Woods, now 

 mark the spots where many happy hours were spent 

 while communing with Nature in her most secret 

 haunts. The sparks are extinct and many rains and 

 snows have beaten the white ash into the cold earth, 

 yet there remain the bright memories which he alone 

 can know who goes to the deep solitudes and sleeps 

 beneath the singing pines. 



We have taken you through the mountain, prairie 

 land, and swamp ; we have shown you the discomforts 

 as well as the pleasures of the life of a naturalist ; 

 we have given you a hunter's fare of venison and 

 camp bread, washed down with black coffee made 

 in a tin cup ; we have laid- you to rest on a bed of 

 spruce boughs and sung you to sleep with the sigh- 

 ing of the wind as it plays through the tree-tops and 

 rustles among the pine-needles. If we have given 

 you one desire for that free life in the woods and 

 mountains or added one iota to your pleasure, we are 

 repaid. 



THE END. 



