^°\^f ^-^^j Smyth, Birds of Montgomery County, Va. 509 



While most of the fauna is Carolinian and Alleghanian, a Cana- 

 dian outcropping occurs, with a few interesting western forms, 

 and this is also well illustrated in the insect life. Only occasion- 

 ally in the winter is a temperature of zero reached, though on one 

 occasion the record was -15°. The snow fall is comparatively 

 light, there being less than in many nearby localities of lower 

 altitude and farther south. 



I have attempted as far as possible to note the earliest and 

 latest occurrence of migrants. Necessarily this is incomplete and 

 is only approximate. Some years I was able to be in the woods at 

 least a part of nearly every day during the migrations; other years 

 sometimes a week or more would elapse between my woodland 

 visits, and I would have to depend on campus observations. The 

 different kinds of ground to be covered also made it impossible 

 to keep impartial records. In the neighborhood are rocky, steep 

 ravines, pine-clad or with rhododendron and kalmia growth on 

 either side; open oak woods; and in the flat broad valley pasture 

 land, grassy or bramble-covered: thus the records of one observer 

 must be very defective, even when extended over a long period. 



Several of my records are new to Virginia; one, Franklin's 

 Gull, was, I believe, the first record east of the Mississippi; and 

 another, the Black-capped Petrel, was the third record for the 

 United States. This latter is referred to in Newton's Dictionary 

 of Birds, in a foot-note on page 709. 



The large number of ducks — fifteen species — and other water 

 birds observed, is interesting, considering the locality, and the 

 absence of any large body of water or even stream in the immediate 

 vicinity. The connection of New River with the Mississippi seems 

 too remote to explain this, though it is possible that estrays from 

 the Atlantic seaboard might follow up the Roanoke River, and 

 from the Gulf and Mississippi, the New River; and as Blacksburg 

 is almost on the watershed between the two, unusual visitors 

 might thus occur. It is, however, more likely that the lines of 

 migration to and from the northwest have more to do with this. 



The town of Blacksburg, and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute 

 are at the head of an extensive, elevated valley, through which 

 several small streams converge, uniting to form a larger, which 

 finally empties into the New River, At intervals, along these 



