230 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



Connecticut, and the summer and autumn of 1810, spent 

 in northern Ohio, furnished me with a starting-point to 

 note the wonderful changes in the animal and vegetable 

 kingdoms, incidental to the conversion of this State from 

 a wilderness into a land of cities, villages, and cultivated 

 farms — changes as great and numerous as those which 

 mark the transition of one period into another in geologi- 

 cal history. 



2. In the year 1840 I located on my farm, bcdoring on 

 Lake Erie, five miles west of Cleveland. Every apple and 

 wild-cherry tree in the vicinity was then extensively im- 

 paired, disfigured, and denuded of its leaves by the bag- 

 worm, called in New England the tent-caterpillar, which 

 annually appeared in numerous colonics. The evil was so 

 extensive that even the most thorough farmers ceased, 

 in despair, to attempt its counteraction. At that period I 

 began to set out evergreen-trees of many species extensive- 

 ly, both for the shelter and the ornament of my grounds — 

 an example soon followed by several of my neighbors. 

 Favorable soil and cultivation rapidly develojied stately 

 growths, forest-like, in dense clumps. 



3. While these were progressing, extensive ranges of na- 

 tive hemlocks and pines, bordering the precipitous banks 

 of Rocky River, were as rapidly falling before the axe and 

 cultivation. These ranges are from two to seven miles 

 west from my locality, and had long been a favorite resort 

 of the jay, as well as numerous other birds, not to mention 

 quadrupeds and reptiles. 



4. When my Norway spruces had attained to the height 

 of some ten or twelve feet, I was pleased to find them 

 occupied one spring by colonies of these jays, apparently 

 migrating from the perishing evergreen forests along the 

 river, and during the ensuing winter the new tenants, aug- 

 mented in numbers, made these incipient forests their 

 places of abode. Each successive year found them still 



