Winter Fauna of Mount Marcy, 



13 



solid mass of rock, while huge ridges, each one a mountain, 

 trending in different directions from its summit, support the 

 central mass like giant buttresses. The summit is often 

 lost amid, or soars above the clouds, and its slopes — below 

 the bare, desolate, alpine crest of rock — are densely covered 

 with a stunted evergreen forest, rooted amid the crevices, 

 the trees increasing in size and vigor as the altitude 

 decreases. The deep valleys, descending between the 

 mountain crests one and two thousand feet, thickly 

 forest-covered on their slopes; the irregular plateau-like 

 valleys north and south, and the little mossy nooks of 

 level land upon its sides, are the haunts of its wild inhabit- 

 ants, the fauna of the coldest, the most alpine, and most 

 desert portion of our territory. 



Huge mountains tower upon every side, like captains 

 encircling their chief. Whiteface far away, Maclntyre less 

 distant, Mt. Clinton and Mt. Wright, Mt. Haystack and 

 Mt. Skylight, Mt. Golden and the Gothics, and far in the east 

 Mt. Dix, the Giant, and Macomb, and numberless others — 

 the landmarks of the Adirondacks — show themselves. 



This is a wild place for any living thing ; let us see what 

 creatures make their home here. 



It is evident that he who is so fortunate as to first read the 

 footpritit writing on the snows of the slopes of Marcy, holds 

 the key to a history of its fauna, and at the same time is 

 permitted to be the first to ascertain the effects of the 

 rigorous mountain climate upon the habits of the different 

 species, as far as his observations go. The study of trails 

 enables him to ascertain' the approximate altitudes at 

 which certain of our wild animals exist, and, in turn, by a 

 careful classification of animals, he is enabled to show that 

 within zones of different altitudes- are found associated 

 animals which belong to similar zones of cold, in higher 

 latitudes. The flora of the Adirondack peaks has been 

 studied ; of the fauna of these mouataia summits this is 

 thought to be the first publication. 



