or pursuing their pleasure on
the ground before us.

I recall the altogether admirable and shining family which Thoreau
dreamed he saw in the upper chambers of Spaulding's woods, which
Spaulding did not know lived there, and which were not put out when
Spaulding, whistling, drove his team through their lower halls. They did
not go into society in the village; they were quite well; they had sons
and daughters; they neither wove nor spun; there was a sound as of
suppressed hilarity.

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 30 deg.
may have the same climate as places under that of 35 deg., and similar Flora
and Fauna. At the head-waters 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 seen here. 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 hemlocks, whither I propose to take the
reader, are rich in many things beside birds. Indeed, their wealth in
this resp