48 PROCEEDINGS MANCHESTER INSTITUTE 



In passing, a word may be added with regard to the change 

 wrought among these rich mountain woods, by fire. Many of 

 the lower peaks and ranges, such as Kearsarge, the Moats, the 

 Rattlesnake range, and others, have been more or less complete- 

 ly burned over by forest fires during the last century. Fires 

 once started in these old forests are not readily stamped out, a 

 damp substratum offering but little hindrance to their progress. 

 The trees are usually killed by the heat and partially charred, 

 but most of them remain standing and soon become withered 

 and exceedingly hard and dry. The soil beneath is quite de- 

 nuded of covering, and along the ridges it soon washes away, 

 leaving bare rocks and ledges. It is long before such an area 

 is again clothed with verdure. Small blueberry bushes are 

 among the first plants to spring up, and sparse grass and fire- 

 weed (Epilobium) follow. Eventually the old fire-killed timber 

 falls from the washing away of the soil and decaying of the roots, 

 and a new growth of birch and poplar slowl}^ takes its place. 

 These trees, well adapted to a thin soil, serve to keep the sub- 

 Stratum from washing completely away, and in time a new for- 

 est is formed, though different from the original one, while the 

 many exposed ledges and bare, rounded ridges testify to the ex- 

 treme difficulty of creating a new soil in place of that worn away 

 by the exposure. 



Hudsonian. This life zone is not well defined in New Hamp- 

 shire. In the extreme northern part of the state, it is possible 

 that well marked tongues or islands of this area occur, as at the 

 Connecticut Lakes, where Woodland Caribou {Raugifcr cari 

 boiL) occur about the cold bogs, and Pine Grosbeaks summer in 

 numbers. On the White Mountains the Hudsonian zone ma}' 

 be considered as including the belt of stunted fir balsam and 

 spruce from about 4,500 feet up to 5,000 feet on southern slopes, 

 the lower limit dipping to perhaps 4,000 feet on some northern 

 exposures. This is the " scrub " of the mountaineer, and forms 

 an exceedingly dense and stubborn barrier to him who tries to 

 force a passage through. Its avifauna is not characterized b}' 

 the presence of any strictly Hudsonian species, so far as pres- 

 ent observations go, a fact which is doubtless due to its limited 



