128 Field and Forest Rambles. 



immediately afterwards, it opens out after the thaws of 

 spring. My always obliging friend Mr. Edward Jack,* to 

 whom I am much indebted for valuable information on 

 forest lore, informed me that the trees for the most part 

 affected grow in exposed places, such as ridges where the 

 north wind plays. Indeed, in felling maple and other 

 hard-wood trees for firewood, I have been astonished to 

 observe how deeply the cold will penetrate into the sub- 

 stance of the stem without disorganizing or seemingly im- 

 pairing the vitality, even to the freezing of the central 

 fibres. The authority above named moreover assured me 

 that trees covered with moss were not subject to these 

 rents, being, no doubt, protected thereby. The effects of 

 cold are, moreover, exemplified by the quantities of last year 

 growths to be seen strewing the snow around the trunks 

 of both the evergreen and deciduous-leaved trees ; hence 

 there is a cropping of the tips of the branches in these 

 latitudes not observable in the trees of milder climates. 

 And no doubt from this cause it is that not only the leaf 

 falls sooner and assumes a brighter tint than in central 

 Europe, and that the former have fewer branchlets as com- 

 pared with corresponding species in milder climates. 



The effects of cold on animals and plants are further 

 illustrated in many ways. Reverting to the cause of the white 

 colourings, whether the direct result of low temperature or not, 

 there is also an undoubted predisposition or idiosyncrasy in 

 the animals so affected to be acted on by the climate, just as 

 the denizens of desert countries take on the grey-brown hues 

 which, in respect to permanence of colouring, are comparable 

 with the artic fox and hare. If the climate, therefore, of 

 Eastern Canada were to become more or less rigorous, we 



* Gratitude, says a lawgiver, comes more nearly than any social virtue 

 to justice. I cannot, therefore, allude to Mr. Jack without recalling 

 recollections of happy hours spent in the agreeable society of his relations, 

 to a fair member of whom I am indebted for the original delineations of 

 more than one illustration in this volume. 



