30 THE BOTANY OF THE ROUTE. 



1855. — The new year began clear and cold, like the last. January 2d it snowed a little, but 

 this was washed away by a rain following after it. It again snowed on the night of the 5th, 

 and cleared off so cold that ice formed along the shore of the bay. On the 9tli the warm 

 southwest winds again prevailed, and there was scarcely any cold weather afterwards. 



Janrmry 14. — It was so warm that a bat came out and flew about the house for some hours 

 before dark. ' ' January 7. The weather has been, lately, growing daily warmer, with a SE. 

 wind. Observed to-day many frogs and striped snakes, and the large slugs and salamanders 

 are crawling about. In the evening frogs are piping their serenade, the pleasant harbinger of 

 early spring. The myrtle-leaved huckleberry is beginning to blossom, and the buds of trees 

 are bursting; everything seems as advanced as in April at home." 



This clear, warm weather continued until February 1, when it rained again, almost constantly 

 for two weeks. Then came another mild, clear term, followed by cold weather, ice forming \ 

 inch thick. 



February 20. — '•^ Nardosmia palmata, Rubus spectahilis, and Trillium grandijlorum are in 

 flower," On the 23d I went up the Chehalis river, and to Puget Sound, which I soon after 

 descended as far as the Straits of Fuca. There, as early as March 17, I found that the delicate 

 little humming bird, swallows, and warblers had already reached the extreme northwest corner 

 of the Territory, and I was disappointed in my hopes of obtaining some rare winter visitors from 

 the north. The flowering currant, strawberries, and many other flowers were there blooming, 

 and the winter was, of course, ended. During this winter more than twenty land and sixteen 

 aquatic species of birds were almost constantly about the bay, some leaving only for a few days 

 during the coldest part of January. A comparison of these numbers and species of birds with 

 those remaining through winter in the same latitudes on the eastern coast will show very 

 strikingly the difference in climate on the opposite sides of the continent. 



FEESH WATERS OF THE TEREITORY. 



Some general remarks upon the waters of the Territory, and their peculiar relations to their 

 animal and vegetable productions, are necessary to complete these notes on the natural regions. 



Taking the fresh waters first, they being, with few exceptions, branches of the Columbia, 

 and those which are not so being small and few, I shall treat of them as if they were, knowing 

 but few differences in their natural products. Closer examinations will, doubtless, disclose 

 the fact that these different waters have many animals, especially small fish, peculiar to each 

 of them, but those which are amphibious can migrate from one to another, and plants are 

 generally extended throughout them by means of their seeds, which are transported by birds, 

 winds, &c. I have already alluded to the fact that an extensive group of plants inhabiting 

 marshes were of identical species with those found in similar places throughout the northern 

 part of this continent, and even of Europe and Asia. A smaller series, more truly aquatic, 

 presents the same fact in a remai-kable manner, (Scirpus lacustris, Typha lati/oUa, Polygonum 

 amphibium, and others.) 



The low temperature of the rivers, and of the springs which form most of the marshes, 

 accounts in great measure for this similarity in vegetation at the level of the sea, and at a 

 height of 5,000 feet on the mountains. The original source of all these waters (except those 

 arising in the Coast range south of the Chehalis) is in the perpetual snows of the mountains, 

 and in their rapid course to the sea they become heated only in those few places where 

 expanded into small lakes and sloughs. The very perfect drainage of the country prevents 



