1S90.I Loomis, Summer Birds of Pickens County. S. C. ^"1 



the most conspicuous. On the higher elevations, in some places, 

 it predominates over all other kinds of growth. Hemlocks, 

 solitary or in small groups, occur at all altitudes in the ravines and 

 coves, interspersed among the hardwood. Scattered through 

 these hollows and on their sides, in smaller numbers, are white 

 pines, while in the damper locations an occasional black spruce 

 towers mast-like amid the other trees. On the poorer ridges the 

 Jersey or scrub pine abounds. The rarer Table-Mountain pine is 

 accounted among the wonders of Table Rock. Rhododendrons 

 everywhere border the wooded streams. The last season the first 

 blossoms were noticed June 15. 



Of the mammals, I have but little of pertinence to note. I did 

 not meet with Sciurus hudsonius 01 Lynx borealis canadensis, 

 but both species are probably present, as I was told that the 

 'boomer' was found on the mountains west on the Big Estatoe, 

 and that a large cat, differing distinctively from the common one, 

 was sometimes taken about Mt. Pinnacle by the wild-cat hunters. 

 The ground squirrel ( Tatnias striatus) is abundant and the 

 ground hog {Arctomys monax) common. 



Three avifauna? meet in the South Carolina highlands — the 

 Louisianian, Carolinian, and Alleghanian. The first-named is 

 not prominent, the local ornis being characterized by species 

 representative of the Carolinian and Alleghanian, those of the 

 former preponderating. The general influence of the mountains 

 is of a nature so potent as to preclude the division of the two 

 thousand feet, more or less, arising above the Oolenoy Valley 

 into distinct faunal zones — sharp distinctions of this kind not 

 existing. In considering the relation between distribution and 

 altitude, woodland birds alone are of significance, for these 

 mountain slopes do not supply the conditions essential to birds 

 inhabiting open situations — a modifying circumstance always 

 to be kept in mind in the perusal of the statements that follow. 

 However, irregular lines of limitation with abrupt sinuosities 

 may be drawn for a few species, the Alleghanian being confined 

 above 2000 feet and the Carolinian chiefly below 2500 feet. 

 While these boundaries appear to be well sustained locally, still 

 a wider field would probably show, in some cases at least, a 

 more general distribution. The universal dispersion of Den- 

 droica virens in the vicinage of Mt. Pinnacle and its reported 

 restriction to the Canadian fauna in the higher mountains of North 



