This is another evidence of the straits the Lynxes are put to for food, in this year of famine.
CHAPTER XXXI
GOOD-BYE TO THE WOODS
The last woods is a wonderfully interesting biological point or line; this ultimate arm of the forest does not die away gradually with uncertain edges and in steadily dwindling trees. The latter have sent their stoutest champions to the front, or produced, as by a final effort, some giants for the line of battle. And that line, with its sentinels, is so marked that one can stand with a foot on the territory of each combatant, or, as scientists call them, the Arctic Region and the cold Temperate.
And each of the embattled kings, Jack-frost and Sombre-pine, has his children in abundance to possess the land as he wins it. Right up to the skirmish line are they.
The low thickets of the woods are swarming with Tree-sparrows, Redpolls, Robins, Hooded Sparrows, and the bare plains, a few yards away, are peopled and vocal with birds to whom a bush is an abomination. Lap-longspur, Snowbird, Shorelarks, and Pipits are here soaring and singing, or among the barren rocks are Ptarmigan in garments that are painted in the patterns of their rocks.
There is one sombre fowl of ampler wing that knows no line—is at home in the open or in the woods. His sonorous voice has a human sound that is uncanny; his form is visible afar in the desert and sinister as a gibbet; his plumage fits in with nothing but the night, which he does not love. This evil genius of the land is the Raven of the north. Its numbers increased as we reached the Barrens, and the morning after the first Caribou was killed, no less than 28 were assembled at its offal.
An even more interesting bird of the woods is the Hooded Sparrow, interesting because so little known.
Here I found it on its breeding-grounds, a little late for its vernal song, but in September we heard its autumnal renewal like the notes of its kinsmen, White-throat and White-crowned Sparrows, but with less whistling, and more trilled. In all the woods of the Hudsonian Zone we found it evidently at home. But here I was privileged to find the first nest of the species known to science. The victory was robbed of its crown, through the nest having fledglings instead of eggs, but still it was the ample reward of hours of search.
Of course it was on the ground, in the moss and creeping plants, under some bushes of dwarf birch, screened by spruces. The structure closely resembled that of the Whitethroat was lined with grass and fibrous roots; no down, feathers, or fur were observable. The young numbered four.