•5Q Todd, Birds, of Indiana and Clearfield Counties, Pa. j a u n 



region, my stopping-place being a farmhouse two miles east of 

 the village of Two Lick, on Two Lick Creek, a few miles south 

 of the town of Indiana and near Chestnut Ridge. This ridge is the 

 most western range of the Appalachian chain in Pennsylvania, 

 entering the State from the south about the middle of the southern 

 boundary of Fayette County, and terminating a short distance 

 east of the place of my observations. At this point it becomes 

 nothing more than a series of broken ranges of high hills, which 

 to the northward finally disappear into the general level. The 

 elevation for this part according to the contour map of the U. S. 

 Geological Survey is 1500 feet, but there is good reason for 

 believing that to the southward the Ridge attains a height of 

 2000 feet, since the town of Ligonier, situated east of the range, 

 in Westmoreland County, is known to be 1748 feet above tide. 



I found this locality far poorer in conifers than the Buffalo 

 Creek region which I had just left, and I was told that they 

 predominated only in the northern and eastern parts of the County, 

 Pine Flats, fourteen miles east from Indiana, being said to be the 

 western limit of their abundance here. No pines at all were 

 discovered, and the hemlock was confined to the bottom lands 

 of Two Lick and Yellow Creeks, and even there it occurred 

 only at intervals. However, where it was found at all it was very 

 often to the almost complete exclusion of other forest trees. 

 Progress through such gloomy tracts of woods would have been 

 practically out of the question had it not been for an occasional 

 cattle-path or a small stream flowing through the midst, so dense 

 were the thickets of laurel (Kalmia latifolia) and rhododendron 

 {Rhododendron maximum) beneath. This growth, as well as 

 that of the hemlocks, often extended a short distance up the ad- 

 joining hillsides, especially if they were steep and had a northerly 

 exposure, though the laurel in places composed thickets by itself, 

 while the rhododendron was not found outside the shade of the 

 hemlocks. 



These tracts of hemlock forest in the creek bottoms, with their 

 undergrowth of laurel and rhododendron, interspersed with small 

 pools of stagnant water, were far more prolific in bird life than 

 the hills and uplands above, although of so limited extent in 

 comparison. Black-throated Blue, Black-and-yellow, Black- 

 burnian, and Blue Yellow-backed, Warblers were the character- 

 istic birds of such cool and shady recesses, within which they 



