508 Smyth, Birds of Montgomery County, Va. \,Oci, 



BIRDS OBSERVED IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY, 

 VIRGINIA. 



BY ELLISON A. SMYTH, JR. 



Since Dr. Rives published his 'Catalogue of the Birds of the 

 Virginias' in 1890, I know of no general list for Virginia or any 

 county thereof. My own observations in Montgomery County 

 were commenced in July, 1891. For the past five years, through 

 pressure of college duties, I have been unable to get regularly 

 into the woods during the migrations, so that, while these notes 

 cover a period of twenty-one years, the observations upon which 

 they are based are only comparatively close from 1891 to 1906. 

 Dr. Rives lists 305 species as positively known within the limits 

 of Virginia. In this one county of Montgomery I have authentic 

 personal records of 194 species. It will be noted that in rare 

 and unique occurrences, or where doubt might have existed as to 

 identification, the specimen was secured and is in my collection. 

 Exception to this occurs in one or two cases where identification 

 was absolute and possession of the bird would have been superfluous 

 slaughter. My observations have been made mostly within a 

 radius of eight or ten miles of the town of Blacksburg, and many 

 of my rarer records are from the campus of the Virginia Poly- 

 technic Institute. 



The peculiar position of Blacksburg doubtless accounts for 

 many unexpected occurrences of eastern and western forms. The 

 town is about 200 miles west of the Atlantic coast, and is situated 

 in the Alleghany system, in a valley 2170 feet above sea-level. 

 The valley, whose general trend is northeast and southwest, 

 is largely Ordovician limestone. To the west, a low range called 

 Brush Mountain, and to the southeast another range known as 

 Price Mountain, are of the Lower Carboniferous. From Price 

 Mountain, a line of hills runs to the northeast of the town, 

 forming the natural watershed of the region ; to the north of these 

 hills the drainage is to Chesapeake Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean 

 through Roanoke River, and to the south and west to the Gulf 

 of Mexico, New River being a tributary of the Ohio. 



