Vol. XXIV 

 1907 



1 Allison, Spring Birds of Tishomingo Co., Miss. 13 



"In a hillside rising immediately beyond a most precipitous 

 descent, is the main opening to a 'silica' mine [so called by the 

 natives] which was abandoned because of the fatality among labor- 

 ers working up the material — though the miners themselves were 

 not affected. The walls of the cave are of an amorphous, softish, 

 chalky material, now damp and covered in many places with slime 

 and moss. The whole hill appears to be of this material, and so 

 do many of the others near by. The main tunnel is about a hun- 

 dred yards long." 



In many places on the hills this limestone is present in the form 

 of irregular pieces of blue stone about as large as a turkey's egg. 

 A talus of this sort at the foot of the viciously steep little hills makes 

 climbing very difficult; and often the same rock is encountered 

 all over the hill. In large, flat pieces, often ten or twelve feet 

 square, it forms terraced ledges through and over which the little 

 streams run; and altogether it is the characteristic rock of the 

 region directly bordering the Tennessee valley, where I spent the 

 whole of the month at my disposal. 



Though cropping out, as I have said, in many places, elsewhere 

 this blue limestone underlies red sandstone; this I found to be the 

 case near the town of Iuka. And between this point and my 

 destination on the river, I crossed thick, level beds of the yellow 

 loam, wooded with old-field and short-leaf pine (Pinus to?da et echi- 

 natus), and underlaid with a loose red sand — under which in turn 

 was doubtless the limestone again. 



In its flora and fauna this county presents characters of a rather 

 transitional nature; a few examples will serve to show the mingling 

 of species belonging to the Upper and the Lower Austral life-zones 

 respectively — as these have been characterized by Dr. Merriam, 

 — a decided predominance of Carolinian forms being evident. 



Of mammals, I found most common the cotton-tail rabbit 

 (Lepus floridanus mallurus); the white-footed mouse (Peromyscus 

 leucopus); the chipmunk (Tamias striatus); the southern gray 

 squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) ; and the red bat (Lasiurus borealis). 

 It will be seen that none of these are species confined to the Austro- 

 riparian zone. The Peromyscus is not generally regarded as a 

 southern species at all, and the chipmunk is placed by Dr. Merriam 

 among the mammals of the Transition zone. 



