AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
149 
his botanical excursion this day, shot a pigeon, in the craw 
of which was a wild nutmeg. He took some pains to 
find the tree on this island, but his endeavours were with- 
out success.” It is easy, therefore, to perceive, that 
birds in their migrations to great distances, and even 
across seas, may transport seeds to new isles and conti- 
nents.' 
The sudden deaths to which great numbers of frugive- 
rous birds are annually exposed, must not be omitted as 
auxiliary to the transportation of seeds to new habitations. 
When the sea retires from the shore, and leaves fruits and 
seeds on the beach, or in the mud of estuaries, it might, 
by the returning tide, wash them away again, or destroy 
them by long immersion; but when they are gathered by 
land birds which frequent the sea-side, or by waders and 
water-fowl, they are often borne inland, and if tbe bird 
to whose crop they have been consigned is killed, they 
may be left to grow up far from the sea. Let such an 
accident happen but once in a century, or a thousand 
years, it will be sufficient to spread many of the plants 
from one continent to another; for, in estimating the ac- 
tivity of these causes, we must not consider whether they 
act slowly in relation to the period of our observation, but 
in reference to the duration of species in general. 
Let us trace the operation of this cause in connexion 
with others. A tempestuous wind bears the seeds of a 
plant many miles through the air, and then delivers them 
to the ocean; the oceanic current drifts them to a 
distant continent; by the fall of the tide they become the 
food of numerous birds, and one of these is seized by a 
hawk or eagle, which, soaring across hill and dale to a 
place of retreat, leaves, after devouring its prey, the un- 
palatable seeds to spring up and flourish in a new soil. 
The machinery before adverted to is so capable of dis- 
seminating seeds over almost unbounded spaces, that 
were we more intimately acquainted with the economy of 
nature, we might probably explain all the instances which 
occur of the aberration of plants to great distances from 
their native countries . — LyeWs Geology. 
AMERICAN PINE TREES. 
There appears to be fourteen species of Pine found 
in the extensive forests of North America. The most 
valuable of these are, the “ Long-leaved Pine” ( Pinus 
Australis ,) from which the turpentine and tar of Ame- 
rica are principally produced; the “White Pine,” 
much used in ship-building; the “ Hemlock Spruce” 
( Abies Canadensis,) the timber of which is not good, 
P r 
but which affords bark nearly as excellent for tanning as 
that of the oak; and the “American Silver Fir” ( Abies 
balsamifera,) from which is procured the resinous sub- 
stance known as Canada balsam. 
The principal exportation of deals from America not 
only to Europe, but to the West Indies, is of the timber of 
the White Pine. Extensive as are the woods of the United 
States, this sp ecies of timber has been almost entirely 
consumed in the thickly-peopled districts; so that those 
who are engaged in the business of cutting down the trees 
have to pass the greater part of their time in remote forests, 
where the White Pine is still found. United in small 
bands, they penetrate into the woods in the depth of win- 
ter, having previously in the summer visited the same 
places to prepare a stock of hay for their oxen. They 
build themselves huts, roofed with bark; and though the 
ground is covered five or six feet deep with snow, and the 
mercury in the thermometer is sometimes eighteen or 
twenty degrees below the freezing point, they apply them- 
selves with the utmost courage and perseverance to fell- 
ing the trees. Cutting them into logs about eighteen 
feet long, they convey them, in the district of Maine, by 
means of their oxen, which are admirably trained, to the 
bank of the Kennebeck river, where they roll them upon 
the ice. Before the spring, when the frost breaks up, 
many thousands of these logs are thus collected. They 
are then carried down the current to Wenslow, about one 
hundred miles from the sea, at which place, the logs being 
previously marked, the owners are enabled to select the 
produce of their respective labours. The timber is here 
sold to the proprietors of numerous saw-mills established 
on the Kennebeck, between Wenslow and the coast; and 
from this point comes most of the American white deal 
which is shipped to foreign parts. 
The “ lumberers” of New Brunswick, and those who 
cut down the timber of the woods of the United States, 
select the firs of proper girth and quality with especial 
care. It is stated, that not one tree in ten thousand is 
fit for purposes of commerce. These thinnings, there- 
fore, of the woods of North America do not produce the 
destruction of timber which now forms a subject of com- 
plaint in that country of forest-trees. The indiscriminate 
clearings of the agricultural settlers, and the conflagra- 
tions which occasionally take place, are the causes, which, 
in a few centuries, may render North America no longer 
an exporting country for timber. Sometimes the forests 
are injudiciously set on fire by the settlers, to save the 
labour of cutting and partially burning; but by such indis- 
criminate conflagration, the land is not properly cleared, 
and a very strong and noxious plant, called the fire-weed, 
instantly springs up, exhausting all the fertility of the 
