APPENDIX. 337 



enormous diameter and age of its mighty trees. lu regard to the 

 latter attribute, we should be compelled to cede the appellation as 

 inapplicable to our own woods, for, from the natural duration of life 

 of our timber trees— even the giant " Pinus strobus " rarely showing 

 over 1000 annular rings in section — the oldest members of the family 

 of North American conifera) cannot look back with those ancient 

 trees which by some have been placed coeval with the builders of the 

 ])yraraids. Still, as it is evident that in the heart of the great fir 

 forests of the X(>rth, even in many wooded portions of this Province, 

 the hand of man has never stirred to remove the existing giants, 

 whilst the bones of their ancestors lie mouldering and moss-covered 

 beneath, I cannot see why they do not merit the term primeval — 

 not in Von Humboldt's acceptation, but according to the ordinary 

 recognition of its meaning, and as " original, such as was at first," 

 savs Johnson. 



To return to tlie subject more immediately before us. Humboldt 

 next introduces a beautiful and eloquent description of the night life 

 of creatures in the forest by the Oriuoco — the wild cries of a host of 

 apes and monkeys, terrified at the uproar occasioned by the jaguar 

 l)ursuing crowds of peccaries and tapirs, which burst through the 

 dense underwood with tremendous crashing ; the voices of com- 

 munities of birds, aroused by the long-continued conflict beneath, 

 and the general commotioo produced amongst the whole animal 

 world, rendering sle(;p impossible of attainment on stormy nights, 

 on which, especially, these carnivals appeared to be most fre(iuont. 



What a contrast is presented on entering the dreamy solitudes of 

 the Xorth American pine forest — sombre though it may be, but yet 

 most attractive to the lover of nature — in the perfect harmony of its 

 mysterious gloom and silence with the life of its animal tenants, 

 their retiring and lonely habits, and their often plaintive and 

 mournful voices ! Our perceptions of the harmonies of nature as 

 inseparably connect the mournful hooting of the great owl with the 

 glooms of the black spruce swamp, as we can the tangled wildness 

 and tropical vegetation of the South American forest with the dis- 

 cordant notes of its gaudy parrots, and the screams of its monkeys. 

 Although almost all of our mammalia are nocturnal in their habits, 

 and many of them beasts of prey, their nightly wanderings and 

 strife with their victims are conducted in the most orderly manner, 

 compared with the scenes we have referred to. Quiet, noiseless 

 stealth is the characteristic feature of all animal life in the forest ; 

 mutual distrust of the s-ame species, and ever-present tendency to 



