958 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 paet 2 



this "invasion," and I have drawn upon it freely in writing the follow- 

 ing pages. He states that, from a first appearance in Ohio and West 

 Virginia in the last few years of the nineteenth and the first few years 

 of the twentieth century, the species reached its maximum abundance 

 in those states between 1915 and 1922. After 1922 a distinct recession 

 in numbers over much of the region was recorded, but he advances no 

 explanation to account for it. 



Perhaps the most striking feature of the bird's range in West Vir- 

 ginia is in the altitudes it attained, which contrast sharply with the 

 low elevations in its ancestral range in the southeast. Maurice 

 Brooks (1938) writes that in 



Upshur County * * * the species was positively common at elevations of 1700 

 feet. In Webster County a number of individuals were observed at altitudes 

 around 2500 feet.* * * The altitudinal record for the State, so far as I am aware, 

 was made near Pickens, Randolph County. Here, on Turkeybone Mountain, at 

 elevations around 3000 feet, the birds were found in 1920, and perhaps in other 

 years. The territory thereabout lies within the "Spruce Belt," the natural growth 

 of Red Spruce (Picea rubens) which followed the higher Allegheny summits. At 

 the time the Bachman's Sparrows were found, the area had, of course, been cleared, 

 but Winter Wrens, Veerys, Magnolia and Cairns's Warblers, Juncos, and Red- 

 breasted Nuthatches all nested nearby. 



In a later article, Maurice Brooks (1952b) repeats his theory that 

 the earlier movement into the region came from Kentucky, crossed 

 the Ohio River into unglaciated Ohio, spread eastward along the river 

 into West Virginia and thence northward down the Monongahela 

 Valley into southwestern Pennsylvania "until they reached the first 

 high Allegheny ridges. Here their invasion was checked * * *. In 

 more recent years Bachman's Pine Woods Sparrows have seemingly 

 made another invasion and extended their range northward through 

 the Shenandoah Valley to the east of the Alleghenies. They are now 

 locally common in portions of northwestern Virginia and the Eastern 

 Panhandle of West Virginia." 



In the breeding season in the southeast, I have found Bachman's 

 sparrow only in areas of pine. The preferred habitat seems to be 

 rather open pine woods with an understory of various species of scrub 

 oaks and a ground cover of grasses and scattered low bushes. Here 

 its nearest neighbors are red-cockaded woodpeckers, wood pewees, 

 brown-headed nuthatches, pine warblers, and summer tanagers. 

 Herbert L. Stoddard (in Burleigh, 1958) states that, in extreme 

 southern Georgia in the area of intergradation between this and the 

 Florida race, Bachman's sparrow "is a highly adaptable species, how- 

 ever, and finds life more attractive in present day tung-oU [Aleurites 

 fordi] groves or around borders of cultivated fields." 



How different is the habitat of Bachman's sparrow near the northern 

 edge of its more recently occupied range. Maurice Brooks (1938) 



