12 Winter Fauna of Mount Marcy. 



civilian, after exhausting marches through silent solitudes, 

 generally returns half in doubt whether he has really 

 visited the region of his fancies and day dreams — whether 

 living thing reall}^ dwells in that region through which he 

 has been conducted. ^Nevertheless the only fault lies in 

 his dreams, as the region of his fancy has no existence. 

 Had he the skill of the still hunter, the crushed leaf, the 

 twigs browsed by deer, the scratched tree bark, the broken 

 branch, the trampled grass, the muddied water of stream, 

 and footprints only visible and interpretable to the eye of 

 skill, would have revealed a wonderful variety of life : tell- 

 ing the secrets of their modes of living, their food, their 

 homes, pursuits, and their pursuers. It is easily seen that 

 the accurate study of the habits of wild animals, undis- 

 turbed in their native haunts, is a study in which the man 

 of science, unless skilled as a hunter, is at a discount. 

 The true book of wild life is the open volume of tracks 

 and trails spread over the whole wilderness and far more 

 difficult than Greek to savans. This volume has written 

 upon its broad pages the daily journal of savage society, 

 telling of their deeds uninfluenced by human presence, 

 the outgrowth of natural instincts. The nocturnal habits 

 also of most of our wild animals, which, like the owl, 

 sleep b}' day, and prowl by night, render it still more 

 difficult to secure observations of their ways of life. 



The summer woods give to us no such plainly written 

 pages of this history as the winter's snow affi)rds, for now 

 though the night be dark, let there but be soft snow, and 

 the footprints stand as records, plain as day. It is to some 

 readings of these records in the snow, had this winter 

 upon the slopes and summit of Mount Marcy, that I desire 

 to call your attention. 



Mount Marcy, or Ta-ha-wus (interpreted, "Icleave the 

 clouds"), as it is said to have been called by the Indians, is 

 unquestionably the highest of our mountains — over 5,400 

 feet in altitude above the sea. It rises sharply upward, a 



