Although the observer, from the outer edge of this sombre wood-line, fails to see any foliage but that of the balsam, when he enters the shadows he discovers a number of trees and shrubs, peculiar to the firs forests of the extreme mountain heights. Of the trees indigenous to the valleys, the wild cherry and hawthorn appear to be the only species growing here. The most ornamental of the trees of the firs forests is the Peruvian, with its smooth, slender trunk, and great branches of brilliant red berries, which appear in the early fall and hang until the severest frosts. Its bark and berries taste like the kernel of a peach-pit, and are frequently mixed by the mountaineers in their whisky, as a bitters having the flavor of peach brandy. Here also spring the service tree, with its red, eatable berry, ripe in August; the balsam haw, with its pleasant tasting black fruit; the Shawnee haw; the Peru tree; the small Indian arrow wood; and thick in some of the most darkly shaded localities, hedges of the balsam whortle-berry, a peculiar species of that bush, bearing in October a jet black berry, juicy and palatable, but lacking the sweetness of the common whortle-berry, which is also found on heights above 6,000 feet in altitude. Scattered near these hedges, are great thickets of blackberry bushes. It is a fortunate thing for the hunters obliged to break through them (sometimes for hundreds of yards), that they are singularly free from briers. While the berries are ripe in July in the valleys, these are green, and it is not until September and October that they become mature. The bears grow fat in such gardens. Peruvian berries are a great delicacy for them. That day, on the Spruce Ridge, Wid Medford called my attention to a small tree of this kind, no more than four inches through at the base, with branches broken on its top about 15 feet from the ground. Deep scratches of an animal’s claws were visible in the bark. It had been climbed by a bear a month since; and a good-sized bear at that, judging from the distance he had reached from where his claws had left their imprint to the highest broken branch. The wonder was how so heavy an animal had climbed a tree so slender. In this connection, I had with the old hunter an interesting talk containing considerable information concerning the habits of the black bear. Whatever Wid Medford says on natural history can be accepted as truth gained by him through long years of experience, close observation, retained by a good memory, and imparted, as such matters would be, without any incentive for exaggeration. His quaint vernacular being the most fitting medium for the conveyance of the sense of his remarks, it is not necessary to clothe it in the king’s English. “Wid,” I asked, “do bears sleep all winter?”