st rising from behind a distant swell of the plain and glittering upon the dew-drops, no scene can be more lovely to the eye. The deer is seen grazing quietly upon the plain; the bee is on the wing; the wolf with his tail dropped is sneaking away to his covert with the felon tread of one who is conscious that he has disturbed the peace of nature; and the grouse feeding in flocks or in pairs, like the domestic fowl, cover the whole surface-the males strutting and erecting their plumage like a peacock, and uttering a long, loud, mournful note, something like the cooing of the dove, but resembling still more the sound produced by passing a rough finger boldly over the surface of a tambourine. The number of these birds is astonishing. The plain is covered with them in every direction; and when they have been driven from the ground by a deep snow, I have seen thousands, or more properly tens of thousands, thickly clustered in the tops of the trees surrounding the prairie. They do not retire as the country becomes settled, but continue to lurk in the tall grass around the newly made farms; and I have sometimes seen them mingled with the domestic fowls, a short distance from the farmer's door. They will eat and even thrive when confined in a coop, and may andoubtedly become domesticated.

When the eye roves off from the green plain to the groves or points of timber, these also are found to be at this season robed in the most attractive hues. The rich undergrowth is in full bloom. The red-bud, the dog-wood, the crab-apple, the wild plumb, the cherry, the rose, are abundant in all rich lands; and the grape vine, though its bloom is unseen, fills the air with fragrance. The variety of the wild fruit and flowering shrubs is so great, and such the profusion of the blossoms with which they are bowed down, that the eye is regaled almost to satiety.

The gayety of the prairie, its embellishments, and the absence of the gloom and savage wildness of the forest, all contribute to dispel the feeling of lonesomeness, which usually creeps over the mind of the solitary traveler in the wilderness. Though he may not see a house nor a human being, and is conscious that he is far from the habitations of men, he can scarcely divest himself of the idea that he is traveling through scenes embellished by the hand of art. The flowers, so fragile, so delicate, and so ornamental, seem to have been tastefully disposed to adorn the scene. The groves and clumps of trees appear to have been scattered over the lawn to beautify the landscape, and it is not easy to avoid that decision of the fancy which persuades the beholder, that such cenery has been created to satisfy the refined taste of civilized man. Europeans are often reminded of the resemblance of this scenery to that of the extensive parks of noblemen, which they have been accustomed to edmire in the old world; the lawn, the avenue, the grove, the copse, which are there produced by art, are here prepared by nature; a splendid specimen of massy architecture, and the distant view of villages, are alore wanting to render the similitude complete.

In the summer the prairie is covered with long coarse grass, which soon assumes a golden hue, and waves in the wind like a ripe harvest. Those who have not a personal knowledge of the subject would be deceived by the accounts published of the height of the grass. It is sel

dom so tall as travelers have represented, nor does it attain its highest growth in the richest soil. In the low wet prairies, where the substratum of clay lies near the surface, the centre or main stem of this grass, which bears the seed, acquires a great thickness, and shoots up to the height of eight or nine feet, throwing out a few short coarse leaves or blades, and the traveler often finds it higher than his head as he rides through it on horse-back. The plants, although numerous, and standing close together, appear to grow singly and unconnected, the whole force of the vegeta tive power expanding itself upward. But in the rich undulating prairies, the grass is finer, with less of stalk, and a greater profusion of leaves. The roots spread and interweave so as to form a compact, even sod, and the blades expand into a close thick sward, which is seldom more than eighteen inches high, and often less, until late in the season, when the seed-bearing stem shoots up.

The first coat of grass is mingled with small flowers; the violet, the bloom of the strawberry, and others of the most minute and delicate texture. As the grass increases in size these disappear, and others, taller and more gaudy, display their brilliant colors upon the green surface, and still later a larger and coarser succession rises with the rising tide of verdure. A fanciful writer asserts, that the prevalent color of the prai rie flowers is in the spring a bluish purple, in midsummer red, and in the autumn yellow. This is one of the notions the people get who study rature by the fireside. The truth is, that the whole of the surface of these beautiful plains is clad throughout the season of verdure with every imaginable variety of color, "from grave to gay." It is impossi ble to conceive a more infinite diversity, or a richer profusion of hues, o to detect any predominating tint, except the green, which forms the beautiful ground, and relieves the exquisite brilliancy of all the others The only changes of color observed at different seasons arise from the circumstance that in the spring the flowers are small and the colors deli cate; as the heat becomes more ardent a hardier race appears, the flow. ers attain a greater size, and the hue deepens; and still later a succession of coarser plants rise above the tall grass, throwing out larger and gaudier flowers. As the season advances from spring to midsummer, the individual flower becomes less beautiful when closely inspected, but the landscape is far more variegated, rich, and glowing.

In the winter the prairies present a gloomy and desolate scene. The fire has passed over them, and consumed every vegetable substance, leaving the soil bare, and the surface perfectly black. That gracefully waving outline which was so attractive to the eye when clad in green, is now disrobed of all its ornaments; its fragrance, its notes of joy, and the graces of its landscape have all vanished, and the bosom of the cold earth, scorched and discolored, is alone visible. The wind sighs mournfully over the black plain; but there is no object to be moved by its influence-not a tree to wave its long arms in the blast, nor a reed to bend its fragile stem-not a leaf or even a blade of grass to tremble in the breeze. There is nothing to be seen but the cold dead earth and the bare mound, which move not-and the traveler, with a singular sensation, almost of awe, feels the blast rushing over him, while not an object

visible to the eye is seen to stir. Accustomed as the mind is to associate with the action of the wind its operation upon surrounding objects, and to see nature bowing and trembling, and the fragments of matter mounting upon the wind as the storm passes, there is a novel effect produced on the mind of one who feels the current of air rolling heavily over him, while nothing moves around.*

There are districts both in South America and in Asia, the pampas and the steppes, to which the prairies have been compared, but perhaps without sufficient reason. In Europe we are not aware that any part of the surface assumes the form and exhibits the same phenomena.

Some hold, that the whole of the vast region over which they extend, was once submerged, and there is much to be said in support of this theory. They appear, however, under various forms, and from observation, we should divide them into three great divisions: "the oakopenings," the rich level or rolling prairie, interspersed with belts and points of timber, and the vast sterile prairies of the far West.

And first, the "oak-openings," so termed from their distinctive feature of the varieties of oak which are seen scattered over them, interspersed at times with pine, black-walnut, and other forest-trees, which spring from a rich vegetable soil, generally adapted to the purpose of agriculture. The surface is ordinarily dry and rolling. The trees are of medium growth, and rise from a grassy turf seldom encumbered with brushwood, but not unfrequently broken by jungles of rich and gaudy flowering plants and dwarf sumach. Among the "oak-openings," you find some of the most lovely landscape of the West, and travel for miles through varied park scenery of natural growth, with all the diversity of gently swelling hill and dale-here, trees grouped, or standing singleand there, arranged in long avenues, as though by human hands, with slips of open meadow between. Sometimes, the openings are interspersed with numerous clear lakes, and with this addition become enchantingly beautiful. But few of these reservoirs have any apparent inlet. They are fed by subterraneous springs or the rains, and lose their surplus waters by evaporation. Many lie in singularly formed hollows, reflecting in their clear bosoms the varied scenery of the swelling banks, and the alternation of wood and meadow. Michigan and Illinois abound with these "oak-openings." Beyond the Mississippi they also occur; but there they hardly form a distinct feature, while on this side they would appear to form a transition from the dense American forest to the wider "rolling prairie," which further west ordinarily bounds the thick forest without any such character of country intervening.

The rich "rolling prairie," which would form the second divison, presents other features, and in a great degree another vegetation. These prairies abound with the thickest and most luxuriant belts of forest, or as they are called "timbers; " appearing interspersed over the open face of the country in bands or patches of every possible form and size; sometimes checkering the landscape at short intervals, and at other times miles and miles apart. They present wide and slightly undulating

* Western Monthly Magazine.

tracks of the rankest herbage and flowers-many ridges and hollows filled with purple thistles-ponds covered with aquatic plants; and in Missouri, it is observed that these "rolling prairies" occupied the higher portions of the country, the descent to the forest bottoms being invariably over steep and stony declivities. The depth and richness of the soil on these lands are almost incredible, and the edges of the bands of forest are consequently a favorite haunt of the emigrant settler and backwoodsman. The game is usually abundant. Over this class of prairie the fire commonly passes in autumn, and to this cause alcne the open state of the country is ascribed by many, as, whenever a few years elapse without the conflagration touching a district, the thick-sown seeds of the slumbering forest, with which the rich vegetable mould seems to be laden, spring up from the green sod of the country. The surface is first covered with brushwood composed of sumach, hazel, wild-cherry, and oak; and if the fire be kept still out, other forest-trees follow.

From those we pass to the vast boundless prairies of the far Westsuch as those beyond Fort Gibson, unbroken, save by the forest rising on the alluvium of some river shore below their level, or by the skirts of knotted and harsh oak-wood of stunted growth-thick without luxu riance, such as the Cross Timbers of disagreeable memory. These prairies seem to occupy the highest parts of the table-land toward the courses of the great rivers and their tributaries. Here the soil is poor in the extreme, and charged with iron and salt; the water is scarce and bad, and the grass is luxuriant. They abound with abrupt and peculiarly-shaped finty hills, sweling up from the general level-great salt plains-rock salt- and occasionally with isolated rocks rising from the surface, with steep perpendicular sides, as though cut by the hand of man, standing alone in the midst of the desert, a wonder to the Indian and the trapper.

The outline of these prairies is grand and majestic in th extreme. They are rarely perfectly level. As you advance, one immense sea of grass swells the horizon after another, unbroken for leagues by rock or tree. They are the home of the bison, and the hunting-ground of the unfettered Indian of the North and West.

At the period when the Europeans began to make settlements in North America, the bison was occasionally found on the Atlantic coast; but even then it appears to have been rare to the eastward of the Apalachian mountains. Theodat, whose history of Canada was published in 1636, merely says that he was informed that bulls existed in the remote western countries. Warden mentions, that at no very distant date, herds of them existed in the western parts of Pennsylvania, and that as late as the year 1766 they were pretty numerous in Kentucky; but they have gradually retired before the white population, and are now, he says, rarely seen south of the Ohio, or on the east side of the Mississippi. They still exist, however, in vast numbers, and roam in countless herds over the prairies that are watered by the Arkansas, La Platte, Missouri, and upper branches of the Saskatchewan and Peace rivers. Great Slave Lake, in latitude 60°, was at one time the northern boundary of their range; but of late years, according to the testimony of the natives they

have taken possession of the flat limestone districts of Slave Point, on the north side of that lake, and have wandered to the vicinity of Great Marten Lake, in latitude 63° or 64°. As far as we have been able to ascertain, the limestone and sandstone formations lying between the great Rocky Mountain ridge and the lower eastern chain of primitive rocks, are the only districts in the fur-countries that are frequented by the bison.

In these comparatively level tracts there is much prairie land, on which they find good grass in summer; and, also, many marshes overgrown with bulrushes and carices, which supply them with winter food. Salt springs and lakes also abound on the confines of the limestone, and there are several well-known salt-licks, where bison are sure to be found at all seasons of the year. They do not frequent any of the districts formed of primitive rocks. Their migration to the westward were formerly limited by the Rocky Mountain range, and they are still un. known in New Caledonia, and on the shores of the Pacific to the north of the Columbia River; but of late years they have found a passage across the mountains near the sources of the Saskatchewan, and their numbers to the wetward are said to be annually increasing. In 1806, when Lewis and Clark crossed the mountains at the head of the Missouri, bison skins were an important article of traffic between the inhabitants on the east side and the natives to the westward. Further to the southward, in New Mexico and California, the bisons appear to be numerous on both sides of the Rocky Mountain chain.

The bisons wander constantly from place to place, either from being disturbed by hunters, or in quest of food. They are much attracted by the soft tender grass which springs up after a fire has spread over the prairie. In winter they scrape away the snow with their feet, to reach the grass. The bulls and cows live in separate herds for the greater part of the year; but at all seasons one or two bulls generally accompany a large herd of cows. The bison is in general a shy animal, and takes to flight instantly on scenting an enemy, which the acuteness of its sense of smell enables it to do from a great distance. They are less wary when they are assembled together in numbers, and will then often blindly follow their leaders, regardless of, or trampling down the hunters posted in their way. It is dangerous for the hunter to show himself after having wounded one, for it will pursue him, and although its gait may be heavy and awkward, it will have no difficulty in overtaking the fleetest runner.

Many instances might be mentioned of the tenaciousness with which this animal pursues his revenge; and we have been told of a hunter having been detained for many hours in a tree by an old bull, which had taken his post below to watch him. When it contends with a dog, it etrikes violently with its fore-feet, and in that way proves more than a match for an English bull-dog. The favorite Indian method of killing the bison, is by riding up to the fattest of the herd on horseback, and shooting it with an arrow. When a large party of hunters are engaged in this way, the spectacle is very imposing, and the young men have many opportunities of displaying their skill and agility. The horses