Birds Find Grateful Homes Here - Grouse, Chickadees, And Linnets, Of
Which We Saw Large Flocks That Had A Delightfully Enlivening Effect.
But the woodpeckers are remarkably rare.
Thus far I have noticed only
one species, the golden-winged; and but few of the streams are large
enough or long enough to attract the blessed ousel, so common in the
Sierra.
On Wheeler's Peak, the dominating summit of the Snake Mountains, I
found all the conifers I had seen on the other ranges of the State,
excepting the foxtail pine, which I have not observed further east
than the White Pine range, but in its stead the beautiful Rocky
Mountain spruce. First, as in the other ranges, we find the juniper
and nut pine; then, higher, the white pine and balsam fir; then the
Douglas spruce and this new Rocky Mountain spruce, which is common
eastward from here, though this range is, as far as I have observed,
its western limit. It is one of the largest and most important of
Nevada conifers, attaining a height of from sixty to eighty feet and a
diameter of nearly two feet, while now and then an exceptional
specimen may be found in shady dells a hundred feet high or more.
The foliage is bright yellowish and bluish green, according to
exposure and age, growing all around the branchlets, though inclined
to turn upward from the undersides, like that of the plushy firs of
California, making remarkably handsome fernlike plumes. While yet
only mere saplings five or six inches thick at the ground, they
measure fifty or sixty feet in height and are beautifully clothed with
broad, level, fronded plumes down to the base, preserving a strict
arrowy outline, though a few of the larger branches shoot out in free
exuberance, relieving the spire from any unpicturesque stiffness of
aspect, while the conical summit is crowded with thousands of rich
brown cones to complete its beauty.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 144 of 304
Words from 38537 to 38858
of 82482
