18 ANIMAL LIFE OF CARLSBAD CAVERN 



spurred towhees, mountain tanager, Audubon and 

 Grace warblers, pygmy and Rocky Mountain nut- 

 hatches, western robin, and chestnut-backed bluebird. 



Reptiles are scarce, but an occasional western garter 

 snake is seen, or one of the short horned lizards or 

 horntoads. 



Canadian zone, shown in green on the map, covers 

 most of the higher peaks and cold slopes of the Capitan, 

 White, and Sacramento mountains, and a small area on 

 top of the southern end of the Guadalupes. It is a 

 narrow, irregular, broken area that reaches its full 

 width only on the White Mountains. It is charac- 

 terized by forests of spruce, fir, and aspens, and by 

 many of the Rocky Mountain species of trees and 



shrubs. 



The mammals of this restricted area included only 

 half a century ago an abundance of the now extinct 

 Merriam elk, and still include the White Mountain 

 spruce squirrel, Rocky Mountain meadow mouse, two 

 species of little shrews, and undoubtedly the hoary and 

 silver-haired bats. 



The breeding birds of the zone in this area are the 

 olive-sided flycatcher, long-crested jay, crossbills, pine 

 siskins, white-crowned sparrows, gray-headed junco, 

 Rocky Mountain creeper, red-breasted nuthatch, 

 golden- and ruby-crowned kinglets, and Audubon her- 

 mit thrush. 



Hudsonian zone shows but a trace on the top and 

 upper cold slope of Sierra Blanca, or White Mountain 

 Peak, at the northern end of the Sacramento Range, 

 which reaches 11,880 feet elevation. This timberline 



