The Audubon Societies 305 



believed in gods and goddesses, or nature-deities we might call them, who 

 watched over their gardens, pastures and flocks. The goddess Flora was sup- 

 posed to protect the plants, while the god Faunus protected the shepherds' 

 flocks, and all the simple forms of agriculture of those early times. In these 

 days we no longer believe in gods and goddesses, but we still use the beautiful 

 names of the ancients in our nature-study. Fauna and flora are not dry, 

 scientific terms at all, but words with a history which tell us a story and at 

 the same time stand for a definite idea. 



Such plants as the arctic poppy, dwarf willow and some of the saxifrages 

 and gentians belong to the Arctic- Alpine flora. Its fauna may be traced by 

 the presence of the Snowy Owl, the Ptarmigan, polar bear, musk-ox, Arctic 

 fox, lemmings, walruses and some of the seals, and, out in the barren ground, 

 the caribou and reindeer. 



Far south of this polar zone, above the timber-line on the loftiest moun- 

 tain peaks in the United States and Mexico, there may be found similar con- 

 ditions of cold and scanty life. We may think of these places as arctic islets 

 high up in the air, overhanging a land of warmth and plenty. Where snow and 

 ice and cold give way to trees, the timber-line is said to begin and sub-arctic 

 conditions take the place of polar frigidity. Between latitude 45° and 57° 

 south and east of Hudson Bay and between 50° and 68° west of that great 

 body of water, roughly speaking, extends a timber-zone, sub-arctic to cold- 

 temperate in climate, from which long arms follow south along the great 

 mountain-ranges of the United States as far as Georgia on the Atlantic coast, 

 and Mexico and southern California in the west. Most of Alaska, British 

 Columbia, the territory from Great Bear Lake down through the Great Slave 

 Lake region and Athabasca as far south as the Saskatchewan Plains, and 

 eastward, almost all of the land between the 60th parallel and the Great Lakes 

 region with the exception of southern Ontario and southern Canada, together 

 with the western parts of Labrador and Newfoundland, most of inland New 

 Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and the northern edges of Maine, New Hamp- 

 shire and Michigan belong to this vast, transcontinental belt. Heavily forested 

 for the most part, the northern part of this zone is covered with spruce and fir, 

 and here, in the so-called Hudsonian fauna, live the woodland caribou, moose, 

 wolverine, and the Rough-legged Hawk, Pine Grosbeak, Northern Shrike, 

 the Great Gray Owl, White-winged Crossbill, and two of our most attractive 

 spring travelers, the White-crowned and Fox Sparrows. 



Just as bits of the Arctic-Alpine zone dot the summits of lofty mountains 

 in the United States and Mexico, so the Hudsonian Zone is also found 

 below these frigid islets, where the timber-line begins. In this part of our 

 high mountain-slopes, the hunter looks for the mountain sheep and mountain 

 goat, the coney or pika and Alpine flying-squirrel, as well as the beautiful 

 Evening Grosbeak, Clark's Nutcracker, which is a kind of Crow, and a near 

 but rare relative of the Thrushes, Robins and Bluebirds, Townsend's Solitaire. 



