22 Journal of the Mitchell Society \_July 



from a little West of Weldon, and thence through Raleigh to 

 Charlotte. Its general western fboundaries are the western 

 limits of Surry, Wilkes, Caldwell, and Burke counties, some 

 of all of which lie outside its limits. McDowell lies half in 

 and half out of the zone, while Henderson is almost wholly 

 outside and Polk almost wholly inside. Besides this it includes 

 the mountain valleys below a:bout 2,500 ft. the principal of them 

 being those of the Hiwasee in Cherokee County, of the Little 

 Tennessee in Graham, Swain, and Macon Counties, of Pigeon 

 River in Haywood, and last but not least of the French Broad 

 in Madison, Buncombe, Henderson, and Transylvania Counties. 



Less collecting, especially if we exclude birds, has been done 

 in our state in this zone than in any other, but fortunately what 

 has been done has been largely near its edges and shows toler- 

 ably well how it differs from the zones above and below. Its 

 faunal characteristics are furthermore much influenced by the 

 comparative low latitude in which our portion of it lies so that 

 we have an intrusion of certain Lower Austral forms and an 

 exclusion of others which further north are characteristic of 

 this zone. 



We can define this zone but little by its mammalian fauna, 

 still the golden mouse ranges throughout it but not above it, 

 while the chipmunk, weasel, meadow mouse, jumping mouse, 

 common deer mouse and muskrat, are also widely distributed 

 forms whose range is largely defined by its southern border. 



In birds the mocking bird, prairie warbler, pine warbler, 

 yellowthroated warbler, blue grosbeak, brownheaded nut-hatch 

 and Bachman's sparrow all occur more or less commonly up to 

 its upper edge, the last four being normally Lower Austral 

 species, while on the other hand the whippoorwill, robin, gold- 

 finch, and yellow warbler do not range to any extent below its 

 southern limits. 



In reptiles it possesses one peculiar species, the brown king 

 snake, a serpent of very limited distribution, but several do 

 not range above it, these being the southern green snake, com- 

 mon king snake, Valeria's snake, ground lizard, and sand lizard. 

 The black chicken snake, queen snake, and painted turtle do 



