THE WIXTER FAUXA OF MOUXT MARCY. 



By Yerplanck Colvix. 



[Read before the Albany Institute at the Annual Meeting, Jan. -1, 1876.] 



The fauna of an elevated mountain district is usually 

 more or less peculiar and diftereut from that of the sur- 

 rounding lowlands, and the rule seems to hold that with 

 increase of altitude and decrease of temperature a hardier 

 and more boreal vegetation will be found, accompanied 

 with animals common to colder and more northern regions. 

 It is not so generally understood that the fauna peculiar to 

 a given mountain section in summer often changes consi- 

 derably at the approach of winter, many of the forest or 

 mountain habitants departing to more hospitable regions. 

 !N"ot alone the mio^ratorv birds who flutter with fashionable 

 elegance from the Adirondacks to Florida at the first rude 

 blast of winter — having only as their home the free air, 

 which is everywhere — but the less favored forest-dwellers, 

 beasts of prey and beasts that are preyed upon, two 

 great natural divisions of animated nature not used in 

 technical classification, which, having no wings to bear 

 them away, are fain to stay and take their chance to de- 

 vour or to be devoured. 



Those who have a knowledge of the wilderness are 

 aware that however wild a region may be, and however 

 abundant the game, it is rare that any but the most skil- 

 ful and stealthy hunter catches even a momentary glimpse 

 of the creatures of the woods. In fact thorough foresters 

 readily detect the novice in woodcraft by his invariably 

 expecting, upon entering the wilderness, to behold abun- 

 dance of game — beasts and birds — in sylvan simplicity, 

 unwarily parading themselves upon his view. The mere 



