NATURAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
119 
barn-yard and house at intervals all day, 
picking up oats, and seeds of grass and weeds. 
" I*\ — I have seen several flocks in the 
woods, and about the borders, lately, flitting 
from tree to ti'ee, and twittering their sweet, 
but weak song. Some weeks ago I found 
a mammal, which I cannot ^nd described in 
Dr. Godman's American Quadrupeds, and 
which may possibly be unknown. I took it 
for a species of Arvicola, resembling the 
common short-tailed field-mouse, but with a 
shorter tail, and the head much rounder and 
more bluff; the ears were large; it was of a 
dark iron-grey colour. It had probably been 
caught by a cat, for it was lying dead on the 
earth, near the house. It may possibly be 
Arvicola Hudson'ms, or perhaps a Geomys. 
" C. — I see, at a great distance, at the 
margin of the forest, a sudden bright gleam 
of light recurring at regular intervals of two 
or three seconds. Do you see it ? or do you 
know what it is ? 
" F. — It is a woodman chopping ; he is too 
far off to be distinguished among the bushes 
and underbrush ; but every time he lifts his 
axe above his head, the polished steel reflects 
the sun's light, and makes those fitful flashes. 
It has a singular appearance, unconnected, as 
it seems, with any apparent cause. 
" C. — The insect world I have found to be 
not altogether so shut up from observation as 
I had imagined. On Christmas-day, I took a 
walk into the woods ; and examining the 
stump of an old decayed hemlock, I found in 
it two minute CJirysomeUdcp, a small black 
Cantharis, and two specimens of a pretty 
Icluieumon, which is shining black, except 
the middle of the antennte, the scutellum, one 
ring of the abdomen, and the anus, which are 
yellow. These were inert and toi'pid, -but 
soon became lively on exposure to warmth. 
I took among the wool of a sheep, near the 
roots, among which it insinuated itself for- 
wards, backwards, and sideways, so nimbly 
that I could with difiiculty get hold of it, a 
small apterous Hippobosca. I also observed, 
suspended from the wall of a house, a chrysalis 
of Vanessa Antiopa. 
" i^. — The Blue Jay (Co7'vus cristatus) 
continues as numerous and as noisy as ever. 
His harsh screaming voice may be heard 
above that of all the other feathered inhabit- 
ants of our groves, all the year through. A 
beautiful bird he is, with his bright violet, 
white, and sky-blue coat, long tail, and pointed 
crest ; and by his airs and grimaces he appears 
to have no mean idea of his own personal 
attractions, and probably he may think his 
voice as charming as his plumage, as he so 
continually gives us the benefit of his music. 
He appears to tyrannize over his brethren 
occasionally. I once saw, in the south, a blue 
jay in close and hot pursuit of a summer Red- 
bird (Tanagra crstiva), and Wilson records 
a parallel incident. He has other notes, be- 
sides his common loud squall, some of which 
are difficult to recognise. In the clearing, 
the parties of these birds, for they are hardly 
numerous enough to be called flocks, generally 
fly high, and alight about the summits of lofty 
trees ; but in the woods, particularly in spring, 
they as frequently choose a lower altitude. 
They are wary, and rather difficult of approach. 
" C. — These tall, but comparatively slender 
elms, remind me of an observation that struck 
me on my first entering a Canadian forest ; 
that the trees, individually, are by no means 
of that gigantic size that my fancy had 
pictured them. The general height of the 
forest does not perhaps fall short of my ex- 
pectations, but though the trees are most of 
them of good size, I have seen none of those 
giants which one would look for in a primeval 
forest. 
" JF. — I have made the same reflection ; I 
have read of very enormous trees occasionally 
occurring in the woods of Upper Canada, but 
in this province, certainly, they do not gene- 
rally surpass mediocrity. The largest boles 
with us appear to be those of elm, birch, and 
hemlock, none of which I have seen that 
would measure more than five feet in diameter, 
at about a yard from the ground. I have 
heard of large logs of white pine, but the 
trees of this valuable species have been all 
cut away in this neighbourhood. Possibly, in 
other parts of the province, the timber may 
grow to a larger size, but I have never heard 
such a fact hinted. 
" C. — Whatisthe cause of the coarse furrows 
and corrugations of the bark in many trees ? 
" F. — Let us examine the structure of a 
tree : here is a recently-cut maple log, which 
will serve our purpose. "We perceive several 
manifest divisions, the exterior of which is the 
bark ; this, however, is not homogeneous in 
its texture ; the outer part is called the rind, 
or ejndervus ; in some, as the'birch and beech, 
this is thin ; in others, as the maple, elm, and 
basswood, it is thick, dry, and rough ; in 
others, as the ash and spruce, it is scaly. The 
inner part is the liber, or true bark ; and is 
the seat of life in the tree, the origin of the 
new buds ; in some trees it i*esembles the rind 
in appearance, as in the maple, but in others 
is widely different, and may be separated, as 
in the elm and birch. It appears that the 
bark does not increase so rapidly as the wood 
of the tree, the increasing diameter of which 
forces and tears apart the rind, causing these 
furrows ; which process is well exemplified in 
the stringy rind of the cedar, which is torn 
into lozenge-shaped divisions, like the meshes 
