Forest animals:

’Fi’oden ria or gnawing animals. ’

strobus) is the grandest, towering eighty to a hundred feet in height, and spreading its tasseled arms above the summit of the deciduous forest. Its long, slender leaves grow five in a bundle; cones long and pendulous. This tree affords the most valuable pine lumber, used for house-finishing, in cabinet-work, and wherever fine work is required.

Red Pine (Pinus rigida) is a smaller tree with large, ovate cones and leaves in twos. It is not common. A considerable grove grows on the banks of Mill River.

The Spruce (Ab/es nigral is a large, heavy-foliaged tree of lofty conical form. Leaves quadrangular, erect. Cones ovate, and drooping. Its timber is used for rough-boards and shingles, in ship-building and for spars of vessels.

The Fir (Ab/es balsameal is an elegant, tapering tree, with symmetrically divided branches. It grows on drier soils. Leaves flat. Cones erect, cylindrical, bluish. Fir timber is soft and light. It is used for fencing and for frames of buildings. Canada balsam, used in microscopy and other arts, is the produce of this tree.

Hemlock (Ab/es Canadensisl is a large tree with small, flat, denticulate leaves and small cones pendulous from the extremities of the branches. Its great, rounded dome of foliage has a soft and delicate appearance. Hemlock timber is valuable for bridge and wharf building and is used for rough—boards. The bark of the Hemlock is that which is used in this country for tanning leather.

The Larch (Larix microcarpa) grows in swamps. It is a medium-sized tree with long branches, sparsely clothed with little bundles of small, light-colored needles which are deciduous. The timber is very durable. It is used for railway ties, fence posts, and knees for vessels.

White Cedar (Cupressus thuyoidesl is a large, rough tree with minute leaves appressed to the branchlets, like scales. It grows in the peat swamps of Prince

County. Cedar is the most durable native timber. It is used for fence and telegraph posts, sills of buildings, and shingles.

Yew and Juniper are prostrate shrubs with the general appearance of conifers. Instead of cones, however, the first bears red, and the last blue, berries. Juniper/s prostrata is a creeping shrub which sometimes covers, with a dense mat of foliage, the summits of exposed sea-cliffs. [pp. 6168]

ZOOLOGY.

The Beaver, though not now on the Island, was once common here, and remains of its dams are still to be seen on streams in many parts of the country.

The Musk Rat is common about streams and ponds. It burrows in the banks and is troublesome in mill dams. It feeds on roots, seeds and shell-fish.

Mice—We have three field mice. The common, short-tailed Meadow Mouse lives on grain and grasses. It builds a nest of dry grass and makes long galleries under the snow in winter when it causes much destruction by barking young orchard trees. The White-Footed Mouse and the Hamster Mouse are much less common. The domestic Mouse and Rat are European importations.

Squirrels. —Our gay little squirrel, so plentiful and so pert in every wood where beech

nuts are found, is the Red Squirrel. A black variety of this squirrel is not rare. The Ground Squirrel, or Chipmunk, digs its burrows under the roots of the great trees in

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