THE ARCTIC LANDS. 



25 



Another distinctive character of the forests of the high latitudes is their 

 apparent youth, so that generally the traveller would hardly suppose them to 

 be more than fifty years, or at most a century old. Their juvenile appearance 

 increases on advancing northward, until suddenly their decrepit age is re- 

 vealed by the thick bushes of lichens which clothe or hang down from their 

 shrivelled boughs. Farther to the south, large trees are found scattered here 

 and there, but not so numerous as to modify the general appearance of the 

 forest, and even these are mere dwarfs when compared with the gigantic firs 

 of more temperate climates. This phenomenon is sufficiently explained by the 

 shortness of the summer, which, though able to bring forth new shoots, does 

 not last long enough for the formation of wood. Hence the growth of trees 

 becomes slower and slower on advancing to the north ; so that on the banks 

 of the Great Bear Lake, for instance, 400 years are necessary for the formation 

 of a trunk not thicker than a man's waist. Toward the confines of the tundra, 

 the woods are reduced to stunted stems, covered with blighted buds that have 

 been unable to develop themselves into branches, and which prove by their 

 numbers how frequently and how vainly they have striven against the wind, 

 until finally the last remnants of arboreal vegetation, vanquished by the blasts 

 of winter, seek refuge under a carpet of lichens and mosses, from which their 

 annual shoots hardly venture to peep forth. 



A third peculiarity which distinguishes the forests of the north from those 

 of the tropical world is what may be called their harmless character. There 

 the traveller finds none of those noxious plants whose juices contain a deadly 

 poison, and even thorns and prickles are of rare occurrence. I^o venomous 

 snake glides through the thicket ; no crocodile lurks in the swamp ; and the 

 northern beasts of pi*ey — the bear, the lynx, the wolf — are far less dangerous 

 and blood-thirsty than the large felidae of the torrid zone. 



The comparatively small number of animals living in tlio Arctic forests 

 corresponds with the monotony of their vegetation. Here we should seek in 

 vain for that immeiise variety of insects, or those troops of gaudy birds which 

 in the Brazilian woods excite the admiration, and not unfrequently cause the 

 despair of the wanderer; here we should in vain expect to hear the clamorous 

 voices that resound in the tropical thickets. Islo noisy monkeys or quarrel- 

 some parrots settle on the branches of the trees ; no shrill cicadae or melan- 

 choly goat-suckers interrupt the solemn stillness of the night ; the howl of the 

 hungry wolf, or the hoarse screech of some solitary bird of ])rey, are almost 

 the only sounds that ever disturb the repose of these awful solitudes. When 

 the tropical hurricane sweeps over the virgin forests, it awakens a thousand 

 voices of alarm; but the Arctic storm, however furiously it may blow, scarce- 

 ly calls forth an echo from the dismal shades of the pine-woods of the north. 



In one respect only the forests and swamps of the northern regions vie in 

 abundance of animal life with those of the equatorial zone, for the legions of 

 gnats which the short polar summer calls forth from the Arctic morasses are a 

 no less mtolerable piigue than the mosquitoes of the tropical marshes. 



Though agriculture encroaches but little upon the Arctic woods, yet the 

 agency of man is gradually working a change in their aspect. Large -tracts of 



