These Canadian forests include oaks, elms,
pines and firs, chestnuts and beeches, birch trees and sycamores,
maples and poplars, willows, alders, and hazelnuts (these last
sometimes growing into tall trees with thick trunks). The trees and
low-growing plants are partly like those of the north-eastern United
States, and partly resemble those of northern and central Europe.
Nowadays, owing to two centuries of incessant killing, the beasts and
birds of Upper and Lower Canada are not nearly so abundant as they
were a hundred years ago. When Canada proper was first discovered, the
wapiti red deer was still found in the basin of the St. Lawrence; it
has long since been extinct. There are, however, still lingering,
reindeer in the north, and elk in the forests of the east. There are
also Virginian deer (_Mazama_), but there is no bison (and, so far as
we know, never has been). There is no prongbuck, and many other
creatures characteristic of the United States and British Columbia are
not found in Upper and Lower Canada or in the maritime provinces. The
tree porcupine (_Erethizon dorsatus_), which the Canadians call
"Urson", or "Little Bear" is found still in the well-wooded regions
of eastern and southern Canada, as well as in British Columbia and
Alaska. In southern Canada there is the wood hare (_Lepus
sylvaticus_), and in the east and north the varying hare (_L.
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