| many deciduous trees which were quite bare of leaves whilst their | | branches were covered with brilliantly coloured flowers. | | | | Upon another occasion Dr. Rae, who had passed much of his life in | | the Hudson Bay Territories and became known by his discovery of | | the relics of Sir John Franklin’s expedition, mentioned to me that | | he had frequently seen that when trees had been uprooted, | | raspberry bushes sprang up in their place thus showing that their | | seeds must have been in the ground. Dr. Joseph Norwood, Assistant | | Geologist, in his report of the survey of the region west of Lake | | Superior, undertaken in 1847, states that from facts which had | | come under his observation, he was led to believe that, “if after | | the clearing of the pine forests, the annual fires cease, a growth | | of oak springs up in some places and aspen in others.” (_Owen’s | | Geological Survey_, pp. 296). In British Columbia the ancient | | forest pines are often succeeded by cedars or alders. | | | | [42] The subject of the destruction of snakes is mentioned by Mr. | | Murray, in his “Travels in North America.” | | | | When passing through a ravine in the territories of the Pawnees | | he observed, “I never should have believed it possible that so | | many rattlesnakes could have been assembled together as I saw in | | that ravine. I think there must have been nearly enough to fatten | | a drove of Missouri hogs,” and he adds in a note. “It is well | | known that in the Western States where rattlesnakes are still | | plentiful the hogs kill and eat them; nor is their bite formidable | | to their swinish enemy, on whom its venomous fangs seem to produce | | no effect. It is owing to this well-known fact that families | | resident in those districts conceive that hogs-lard must be a kind | | of antidote to their poison, and frequently use it (I believe | | successfully) as a remedy.” (_Travels in North America, by Hon. | | Charles Augustus Murray, Vol._ ii, _pp._ 42.) | | | | An Englishman who had a large farm in West Virginia, told me that | | the hillsides were cleared of the snakes, which had previously | | infested them, by turning out pigs upon them. | | | | A similar result took place in Minnesota and upon the prairies | | east of the Missouri. | | |