6 BULLETIN 2 



Mountains on the west, and sweeps down toward North 

 Adams, where Greylock's peaks and deep ravines bound the 

 horizon. 



From the ridges of Pownal one overlooks the enchanting 

 valley of the Hoosac, the Taconic Mountains lifting sharp- 

 ly to the west, and the amphitheatre about Williamstown 

 circling round toward Greylock's flanks. 



The country from border to border offers every condition 

 which birds and all other lovers of out doors could desire. 

 Alluvial meadows threaded by slow moving streams, past- 

 ures with swampy hollows and boggy reaches extending 

 far into the flanking hills, the hillsides dotted or crowded 

 with communities of cedars, young pines and spruces, apple 

 bushes browsed into curious shapes, and berry bearing 

 shrubs of various kinds Upland pastures with reaches of 

 short sweet grass, interminable acres of Dicksonia crowd- 

 ing the boulder-strewn slopes to the edge of the encroach- 

 ing forest, or may be to the bare wind-swept summits, an 

 undulating sea of green like no other summer tint, and 

 golden brown when the year is ripening. 



Range upon range of densely wooded dome-shaped hills, 

 flowing into beautiful lines on the horizon. Sombre, bare, 

 shattered summits and precipitous cliffs rising above the 

 enclosing greens beneath. 



Wild mountain torrents cascading through the deep 

 forests, Streams of the open woodland. The soft, illusive 

 gloom of the tamarack swamps, sphagnum swamps, and 

 great areas where swamps penetrate the hard-wood forest 

 or make still, secluded pools in the bushy clearings. Lone- 

 ly ponds in rocky basins among the mountain peaks, and 

 open sunlit ponds sensitive to every breeze. 



I should like to consider the counties by townships, mak- 

 ing an ecological study of each, but such treatment would 

 unduly lengthen my paper. 



The forests are such as are common to all our mountain 

 towns, mainly red spruce (Picea nigra rubra), balsam fir 

 (abies balsamea), hemlock, (Tsuga canadensis), paper 

 birch CBetula papyrifera yellow birch (Betula lutea), 

 beech (Fagus americana), and sugar maple (Acer barba- 

 tum). Young plantations of white pine (Pinus strobus), 

 are more vigorous in the western county. Red pine (Pinus 

 resinosa) is found occasionally in region about Brattleboro, 

 dlso in the river valley in Pownal. I found a few gray pines 

 (Pinus divaricata), in Bennington county, (about the 

 Dome) also black spruce (Picea mariana) in the peat bogs. 



