20 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 



and Fox-colored Sparrows, a couple of Winter Wrens, and one 

 Nashville Warbler — which I shot. A dozen Chickadees, with an 

 equal number of Yellow-birds and a few Golden-crowned Kinglets, 

 could be seen among the branches of a low spruce near by, while 

 several Red-bellied Nuthatches and a pair of Brown Creepers amused 

 themselves with winding up and down its trunk. Leaving out the 

 Fox Sparrows and the Nashville Warbler, this flock stands as a very 

 fair example of these incongruous assemblages, several of which one 

 falls in with every day at this time of year. It seems strange that 

 the desire for company, always marked during the migrations, should 

 induce such unlike species to collect and wander together over this 

 wilderness. It must be that they have faith in the old adage that 

 * there is strength in numbers!' I have seen the Purple Finch in 

 some of these mixed flocks; and a few Hairy and Downy Wood- 

 peckers and Hermit Thrushes sometimes hang about their outskirts, 

 but the latter are more commonly seen by themselves in groups of 

 half a dozen or thereabouts." 



6.-B0TANY. 



While the grand scenic effect of any region, the effect that is de- 

 pendent on the general contour and make up of the country and its 

 gross reliefs, is governed by its geology and topography; so is the 

 general aspect, ox physiognomy, of a region dependent upon the char- 

 acter of the vegetation in which it is clothed. As, in the tropics, the 

 stately Palms, the colossal arborescent Ferns, the solemn Aloes, and 

 the light and feathery Mimosas contribute such striking features to 

 the physiographical areas to which they severally pertain; so do the 

 deciduous hardwood groves of the temperate zone, and the dark co- 

 niferous forests of the north give to these regions their peculiar and 

 characteristic appearance. 



The distinctive physiognomic aspect of the Adirondack Wilderness, 

 the dark and sombre evergreen forests, is chiefly the consequence of 

 the large development of a single genus of coniferous trees; for the 



