38 WAKE-ROBIN 
Spaulding’s cart rumbles through their house. Gen- 
erally, however, they are as unconscious of Spaul- 
ding as Spaulding is of them. 
Walking the other day in an old hemlock wood, 
I counted over forty varieties of these summer vis- 
itants, many of them common to other woods in 
the vicinity, but quite a number peculiar to these 
ancient solitudes, and not a few that are rare in 
any locality. It is quite unusual to find so large 
a number abiding in one forest, —and that not a 
large one, — most of them nesting and spending the 
summer there. Many of those I observed commonly 
pass this season much farther north. But the geo- 
graphical distribution of birds is rather a climatical 
one. The same temperature, though under differ- 
ent parallels, usually attracts the same birds; differ- 
ence in altitude being equivalent to the difference 
in latitude. A given height above the sea-level 
under the parallel of thirty degrees may have the 
same climate as places under that of thirty-five de- 
grees, and similar flora and fauna. At the head- 
waters of the Delaware, where I write, the latitude 
is that of Boston, but the region has a much greater 
elevation, and hence a climate that compares better 
with the northern part of the State and of New 
England. Half a day’s drive to the southeast brings 
me down into quite a different temperature, with 
an older geological formation, different forest tim- 
ber, and different birds, — even with different mam- 
mals. Neither the little gray rabbit nor the little 
gray fox is found in my locality, but the great 
