"12 Loomis, Summer Birds of Pickens County, S. C. [January 



there is a sheer descent, according to local measurement, of nine 

 hundred feet. The other ranges of the immediate vicinity do not 

 differ strikingly from the Mt. Pinnacle range, though some are 

 less precipitous and offer more favorable opportunities for agricul- 

 ture. The absence of plateaus and other extended levels adds 

 greatly to the difficulty of studying the avian fauna of the moun- 

 tain tops. A few shots generally drive the birds to the steeper 

 declivities where prolonged pursuit is not feasible. Often birds 

 will be plentiful a few hundred feet below the station occupied, in 

 situations practically inaccessible, or which can be reached only 

 by long detours entailing exhausting exertion. 



The Oolenoy Valley (or Oolenoe as formerly spelled by some 

 writers), so often referred to in the subjoined notes, is a fertile 

 bottom following the Oolenoy Creek from its junction with the 

 Saluda (a branch of the Broad) to the watershed separating its 

 south fork from the headwaters of an affluent of the Savannah in 

 Reedy Cove. The High-low Gap, also frequently mentioned, is 

 a dividing ridge between the north prong of the Oolenoy and the 

 south branch of the Saluda. 



It will be seen that the territory actually covered by my explor- 

 ations is very limited ; the whole tract, bounded by Table Rock 

 on the east, Reedy Cove on the west, the High-low Gap on the 

 north, and the Oolenoy Valley on the south, perhaps aggregating 

 not above twenty-five square miles. 



Except where the ground is sterile or rocky, the mountains are 

 covered with woods of hardwood growth. There are but few 

 clearings, the settlements being almost exclusively confined to 

 Reedy Cove and the Oolenoy ami Saluda Valleys. Mt. Pinnacle 

 is wholly uninhabited, although there is a little ' deadening ' near 

 the summit where a few acres of hillside were formerly cultivated. 

 Though there are fine forests, as at the top of Mt. Pinnacle and on 

 Rich Mountain at Reedy Cove, still the timber is not of great age. 

 Men of advanced years can remember when "Bald Knob' (the 

 local appellation of Mt. Pinnacle) was, intact, truly bald. The 

 name, ' Mt. Pinnacle,' is of very recent origin, having been be- 

 stowed by the engineers of the United States Coast and Geodetic 

 Survey. For fear of unduly extending these preliminary remarks, 

 allusion is made only to such floral features as forcibly arrested an 

 eye accustomed to the woodlands of the lower country. Of the de- 

 ciduous trees — aside from the oaks and hickories — the chestnut is 



