HARDY — ON PROVINCIAL ACCLIMATIZATION. 23 



our woodlands requiring freedom from molestation for a term of 

 years, would be quickly hunted down and destroyed. 



Leaving, hoAvever, these important questions of protection or 

 extinction of already-existing indigenous species in the hands of 

 those who hold the means of ordering these matters, I will now 

 call your attention to what might be done to increase our stock of 

 useful wild or domestic animals, birds or fish, could they be insured 

 the necessary wardship. We will consider first whether our large 

 woodland districts demand and would bear foreign colonization, and 

 for what types their physical conformation seems best adapted. 



Even in its most undisturbed and wildest depths the North 

 American forest has always been noted for its solitude ; the meaning 

 being the great disproportion of the animal to the vegetable king- 

 dom. It seems as if nature had exhausted her energies in shading 

 the ground with the dense forest and the rank vegetation which 

 every where seizes on the rough surface beneath. It is impossible 

 to say to what extent animal life might have once existed in the 

 primeval forest; but no one who has taken a day's walk in the 

 woods, either near to or far from the haunts of man, can fail being 

 impressed with the apparent absence of animal life. The European 

 visitor, in a suburban ramble through the bush, wonders at the 

 scarcity of game birds, rabbits, or hares, but is astonished when told 

 that in the deepest recesses of the wild country he will see but little 

 increase of their numbers. A canoe paddled through lake after 

 lake of our great highways of water communication, will see but a 

 few pairs or broods of exceedingly timid waterfowl, where in 

 Europe they would literally swarm. Surely then, here is room for 

 the work of Acclimatization, in a country where so much toil is 

 undergone m the often fruitless pursuit of sport. 



The undergrowth of our wild forest lands, the field for Acclima- 

 tization which we have under immediate consideration, consists of 

 an immense variety of shrubs, under- shrubs, and herbs, annual or 

 perennial. The under-shrubs generally bear the various descrip- 

 tions of berries, and with great profusion. There are here and 

 there wild pastui'es, or intervales, by the edge of sluggish water, 

 but they bear but a small proportion to the woodlands ; the bogs 

 and barrens produce moss in abundance, and of the kind found in 

 every part of the world where the reindeer is indigenous, or has 

 "been successfully introduced, as in Iceland. 



