I take it for granted that the forester was only saying a pretty
thing of the birds, though I have observed that it does sometimes
annoy them when Spaulding's cart rumbles through their house.
Generally, however, they are as unconscious of Spaulding as
Spaulding is of them.

Walking the other day in an old hemlock wood, I counted over forty
varieties of these summer visitants, many of them common to other
woods in the vicinity, but quite a number peculiar to these ancient
solitudes, and not a few that are rare in any locality. It is quite
unusual to find so large a number abiding in one forest,--and that
not a large one,--most of them nesting and spending the summer
there. Many of those I observed commonly pass this season much
farther north. But the geographical distribution of birds is rather
a climatical one. The same temperature, though under different
parallels, usually attracts the same birds; difference in altitude
being equivalent to the difference in latitude. A given height above
the sea-level under the parallel of thirty degrees may have the same
climate as places under that of thirty-five degrees, and similar
flora and fauna. At the headwaters of the Delaware, where I write,
the latitude is that of Boston, but the region has a much greater
elevation, and hence a climate that compares better with the
northern part of the State and of New England. Half a day's drive to
the southeast brings me down into quite a different temperature,
with an older geological formation, different forest timber, and
different birds,--even with different mammals. Neither the little
gray rabbit nor the little gray fox is found in my locality, but the
great northern hare and the red fox are. In the last century a
colony of beavers dwelt here, though the oldest inhabitant cannot
now point to even the traditional site of their dams. The ancient