Bethel to Upton.
1907
July 22
(No 5)
before coming to a place whence he may enjoy a view
quite unobstructed by trees or houses and of exceptional beauty
and interest. Indeed it is, I think, unrivalled by anything of
the kind to be found elsewhere in New England. But as
Lake Umbagog is its centre of attraction and as this sheet of
water and its surroundings will be dealt with fully in
other connections I will leave the subject for the present
to return to that which we have just been considering.
  If he who follows the road from Bethel to Upton
be sufficiently familiar with New England plants and birds
to identify, from the slowly moving stage, most of them
which he may see or hear along the way in June or early
July, he can scarcely fail to notice that both flora and
avifauna are appreciably more northern in character in and
above Grafton Notch than in the region about Bethel.
Indeed the Notch obviously forms a natural barrier separating
two life zones of somewhat different if closely related character
and affinitites. Of those the more northern is almost purely
Canadian & the more southern to a certain degree Alleghenian
or Transitional. The dividing line between the two is nowhere
strictly and abruptly drawn, however. Some of the plants which disappear
before the notch is reached reappear beyond it
in a few places where the soil on the slope exposures especially
favor their existence and most of the birds occasionally wander through
it, even during their breeding seasons. But setting aside such
instances of purely local or unmistakably sporadic occurrences
and dealing in general terms it is quite safe to say that
there are a number of plants and birds found regularly
and perhaps not uncommonly only ten or fifteen miles to
the southward of the notch which are seldom if ever to
be met with in or immediately to the northward of it.