ON THE OCCURENCE OF TWO SOUTHERN 

 BIRDS IN VA. 



Virginia offers many conditions from a geographical stand- 

 point which make it a state well favored with an extensive and 

 somewhat varied avifauna. On the West, the Alleghanies, 

 stretching from a northward to a southward direction, afford 

 the conditions for the Alleghanian and Canadian faunae, while 

 on the East, along the Atlantic sea-board as far as the Chesa- 

 peake bay, the Austroriparian life area, semi-tropical in its 

 nature, gives rise to a fauna markedly peculiar as regards 

 Mammals — some being of distinctly tropical genera — and con- 

 taining some peculiar species of birds, as Swainson's Warbler. 

 Throughout the remainder of the state the Carolinian fauna is 

 present, and in certain sections one may find birds of several 

 faimae mingling together. In Southwest Virginia in the Pied- 

 mont section I have observed birds of the cold temperate sub- 

 region fauna present in abundance, — as, Dendroica castanea, 

 D. virens, ID. blackburiae, Trolodytes hiemalis, Tiirdus a pal- 

 lasi, D. tigrina, Certhiaf. american, Hehninthrophila ruficappila, 

 Junco hyem.ilis carolinensis , and others, while birds of the 

 Humid Warm Temperate faunae, were also present in great 

 numbers and breeding, so that there were characteristic birds 

 of three life zones present in the same locality, — birds of the 

 Canadian, Alleghanian and Carolinan faunae all associating to- 

 gether in the same immediate territory. This was at Lynch- 

 burg, a locality that seems to be a merging point of the Alle- 

 ghanian and Carolinian zones. At this same locality, later in 

 the season, the Ground Dove and Bachman's Sparrow have 

 been taken, the latter breeding. The Alleghanian zone has 

 been considered by Dr. Allen as a transition belt LIMITING THE 



