Among all the changes mentioned, some of us have been spectators of nearly an extinction of birds in our valley and its vicinity, many different kinds of which formerly visited us in the spring of the year and continued with us during the summer and a part of the fall months. Their active flights from place to place and from tree to tree, and their musical voices of different sounds enlivened and cheered our lonely valley. These all had to be active to gratify their cravings of what was necessary to sustain life. Some wandered along streams of water to procure their food; some hovered high in the air of the atmosphere, from which they surveyed the lands and waters below them to discover the objects they craved for food, from which elevation the hawk would sometimes dart swiftly downward among a flock of birds and catch and make a prey of one of them, as well as of his objects on the ground. The fish-hawk hovered over the waters, the chicken-hawk over the landscapes to entrap their prey. The owl made his excursions in the night to seek his food, and each of the different tribes of birds possessed its own means of obtaining a living. Many of the worms and insects on the ground, and of those small insects which impregnated the air of the atmosphere, became a prey of birds. Among the different tribes of birds which visited us were the following, to wit: Blackbirds of different kinds, crows, robins, swallows of different kinds, nightingales, snipe of different kinds, killdeers, cranes of different kinds, hawks of different kinds, owls of different kinds, turtle doves, whippoorwills, wrens of different kinds, bluebirds, partridges, quails, wood-peckers, eagles, snow birds, and a few other kinds. The pleasing enjoyments of all species of birds are evidences of the goodness of their Creator; and the adaptation of all kinds of living creatures whatever to their respective modes of life, are evidences of a preexisting plan for the formation of each, and the manner in which each shall be furnished and receive whatever is necessary for its preservation during life. Snakes have also become nearly extinguished in this valley within the last half century, previous to which there were yet some rattlesnakes, pilots, blacksnakes, sissing adders, gartersnakes, greensnakes, and milk-snakes, and toads and frogs are not as numerous now as in former times. Now, although some of these reptiles may appear to us as unnecessary nuisances, yet they undoubtedly have answered certain good purposes in their sphere of being. A few persons of this neighborhood have suffered from the bites of poisonous snakes, but remedies were here known in former times which saved the lives of those who were bitten. Their number within my knowledge was six.