SPRING IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 37 



by its genial influence. The dormant energies of vegetation seern suddenly to act 

 with extraordinary vigor. Our low mountain willows still buried, in many places, 

 two feet deep in soft snow, have formed already their dense white catkins covered 

 with a soft, woolly inflorescence. The alder shoots out its rusty, red flowers, and 

 the mountain birch (Betula resinosa) swells its buds and catkins with a vigorous 

 growth, while lower down the valley, at 10,000 feet altitude, the hairy anemone 

 with purple hirsute flowers, peeps out of the mellow sunny banks in tufts of 

 many heads. The Arbutus uva ursi (Killikinick), grows greui and vigorous, with 

 numberless flower buds. 



Ascending the south valley the snow increases in depth up to eight to ten 

 feet on the mountain slope. Where shaded by Pinus anstata, Abies canadensis 

 (balsam fir), and white spruce [Abies alba), its great bulk is yet but slightly 

 reduced by a brilliant, fervid sun, and a heat at one o'clock p. m., of fully 85 °. 

 Ascending to the summit of the range over the just graded track of the George- 

 town and Snake river wagon road, I find the twin flower (Linrtcea Borealis), 

 wherever the ground has been shoveled bare of snow, it is growing thriftily and 

 full of new flower buds, even up to 11,300 feet altitude; while with its fescue- 

 grass (Favina,) Pyrola, and Vaccinium, are everywhere growing rapidly. Ev- 

 ery patch of ground is teeming with new life, while flies and butterflies buzz 

 and flit in every direction. Continuing my ascent, after crossing a vast snow- 

 field between 11,400 and 11,900 feet altitude, the summit of the mountain is 

 revealed, bare of snow for a long distance on the south and west slopes ; its 

 countless variety of grasses and mossy flowering plants just starting into life. Here 

 the Silenes, Arenarias, Saxifrages, Gentians, Sibbaldias, Drabas, Crepis, Myosotis, 

 Eritriclunis, Mertensias and Ranunculi, ar e giving faint indications of the end of that 

 long sleep that begins in October and continues until May. In six weeks time 

 we will find them in vigorous growth, and by June in the glory of florescence, 

 rivaling in brilliancy the rays of that sun whose heat forces them into rapid 

 growth; but of short duration and still more rapid maturity. 



The summit of our snowy range in many respects, is akin to Greenland or 

 the Arctic circle ; not only in its flora but in the animal world that is developed 

 in those lofty isolated summits. We find the birch and willow dwarfed into 

 shrubs, only three or four inches high ; while the countless variety of flowering 

 plants are mere diminutive mosses, hardly one inch high, spread in circular 

 patches in sheltered nooks. We find here a lovely gentian, three-quarters of an 

 inch high, with fully developed stem, leaves and flower. A real vegetable 



pigmy- 

 Accompanying the rapid changes of the whole plant growth, we find in the 

 lower valley a renewal of the activity of animal life. Chipmunks of two varieties ; 

 a handsome gray pine-squirrel, and the black squirrel with tufted ears (Sciurei 

 aberti), are roaming over the pine trees. The white arctic hare, the tailless mar- 

 mot field mice, small yellow-foxes, mountain wolves, the wolverene (Gulo), 

 mountain sheep, and a handsome pine marten, are not infrequent. Of birds, we 



