Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/314

280 essentially the poet-naturalist of Concord, he has revealed in lesser degree the flora and fauna, the landscapes and the soils in the wilds of Maine, the mountains of New Hampshire, the rivers of Canada, and the beaches of Staten Island and Cape Cod. He studied the plants and grasses of Concord, and, in comparison, he tested and described the red osier, the hobble-bush, cornel and viburnum of the Maine forests and made a careful study of the tree-rings, fungi, sedges, and the peculiar varieties of the gnats and cicindelas. As noted, his later excursions were for the purpose of botanizing. When he went to the White Mountains for the last time, he searched for forty-six varieties of plant and flower and secured forty-two rare specimens.

The detailed announcement of the arrival, songs and nesting-habits of the New England birds, the close study of the ants, tortoise, muskrats and mussels as laborers and housekeepers, the graphic scrutiny of the flying squirrel and winged cat, the minute description of the first quivers of the soil in spring and the unfolding of willows, birches, cowslips and lobelias,—such vivid memories from his pages attest his service as a wide and accurate naturalist. As sympathetic observer, not as angler, he has familiarized us with the traits of the horned pouts, pickerel, breams, "with their sculling