44 NATURE IN ACADIE. 



rotted away. I noticed, as an odd circumstance, that 

 for some distance this little stream formed an abrupt 

 boundary between two totally different descriptions of 

 woodland, for while upon one side the woods consisted 

 of (at this season) bare and leafless birch and similar 

 trees, on the other side of the stream rose dense and 

 funeral-looking spruce woods. I heard a woodpecker 

 tapping here, and followed it a short distance, but could 

 not obtain a view of it. I also noticed a white-breasted 

 nuthatch among the firs, as well as several chickadees 

 and brown creepers. 



Leaving the stream I then struck through the forest 

 until I came upon a long ravine in the dense woods, 

 with sloping sides and an almost level bottom, which 

 was sparingly timbered, and with a sluggish stream 

 winding along it, and on which the snow still lay thickly, 

 as it also did in many spots in the surrounding woods. 

 I saw here a large nest of the American crow, fully 

 sixty feet up in the fork of a large and almost limbless 

 maple, but I did not attempt to ascend to it. Crossing 

 the ravine I pushed on again through very thick woods, 

 varied occasionally by higher and more open rocky 

 ground covered mostly with scrubby brushwood, but 

 saw nothing more, and so retraced my steps and struck 

 a track leading back to the Bedford Basin. Just here 

 the trees were chiefly hemlocks, and veritable giants of 

 the forest they were, many of them being fully four feet 

 in diameter near the ground and towering to an itnmense 

 height. 



While passing down this track the snow commenced 

 to fall gently, adding to the lonely and desolate nature 

 of the forest. I noticed many old burrows of the 

 woodpecker in the summits of the bare and whitening 

 trunks that met the eye on every side, but saw very 

 few birds of any kind until I came to a low swampy 

 fir wood, in the midst of which was a shallow pond 

 where the frogs were croaking dismally. Here a large 

 barred owl flew close past me with its peculiarly light 

 and noiseless flight, and settled upon a dead tree a 

 short distance behind. The habit of flying in the 



