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672 EFFECTS OF EXTRAORDINARY SEASONS ON THE 
yet alive are in a critical condition. The red cedar (Juniperus 
Virginiana) is also a great sufferer in some regions, most of the 
specimens being dead or dying, while in others the greater part are 
unhurt. The yellow and white pines (P. mitis and P. strobus) 
are also much injured in many places, though in most cases 
immediate death has not resulted. All the other coniferous 
trees about Massachusetts Bay have suffered more or less. The 
greatest amount of damage seems to have taken place in sandy 
soils. So far as I have been able to observe, the trees placed so 
as to receive the greatest amount of moisture have on the whole 
withstood the crisis the best. The deciduous trees appear to 
have come out without damage; I have not yet been able to find 
any evidence of unusual loss among them. The same may be 
said for our herbaceous plants which, so far as my limited knowl- 
edge goes, show no signs of damage. 
The only change in animal life which I have noticed is the 
comparative scarcity of snakes. In about two hundred miles of 
walking in the fields and woods I have encountered but three; of 
course, in a matter where it is so difficult to be sure of compara- 
tive numbers in different seasons, it will not do to make positive 
assertions, but I am strongly inclined to believe that the same 
amount of walking would have shown me several times as many 
snakes in former years. I am sure that this is the first year that 
I have gone until July spending at least one day in the week in 
the open air, without seeing a black snake. Toads seem to me 
also much less common than usual. 
The most interesting point in this connection is the question as 
to what would have been the effect of carrying this accident 
of climate a little further. Small as the destruction of forest - 
trees is, it will doubtless add several per cent. to the deciduous 
trees of New England, and remove an equal amount of conifers. 
The conifers seem to be relics of an old time and not competent 
to wage a successful war with their younger and more elastic 
competitors, the oaks, beeches and other deciduous trees. Every 
gap that is made in our forests of cone-bearing species is filled 
not with their legitimate successors, but by forms from the othet 
class of trees. Let us suppose that the shock of the last me 
had been great enough to kill off the whole of our pines, t i 
result would have been a complete change in the character of a 
forests ; oaks generally would take the vacant place. This wou 
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