ORIGINAL BIOTA OF THE AMERICAS 



65 



It is "an open forest of low stature, the 

 trees seldom exceeding 40 ft. in height. 

 The needle-leaved and scale-leaved 

 evergreens are the dominant trees, but 

 the forest is everywhere accompanied by 

 shrubbery and by some succulent or 

 semi-succulent plants, and is carpeted in 

 many localities by an open growth of 

 perennial grasses. Along the Mexican 

 boundary this forest merges into the 

 encinal, or evergreen oak type. The 

 dominant species of the Xerophytic 

 Evergreen Forest vary from state to 

 state but are in almost all cases either 

 junipers or pinyons." 



Among the characteristic mammals 

 are the woodrats (Neotoma spp.), deer- 

 mice (Peromyscus spp.), and cottontail 

 rabbit (Sylvilagus audubonii subspp.). 



The breeding birds include the fol- 

 lowing: white-checked goose, plumed 

 quail (Ventura County and north), 

 San Pedro quail (San Ber. and San Gab. 

 Mountains), Sierra grouse, band-tailed 

 pigeon, western mourning dove, Cali- 

 fornia vulture (Santa Clara County, 

 south), turkey vulture, sharp-shinned 

 hawk, Cooper's hawk, western goshawk, 

 western red-tailed hawk, golden eagle, 

 desert sparrow hawk, spotted owl, 

 Pasadena screech owl, Pacific horned 

 owl, pygmy owl, Sierra woodpecker, 

 Cabanis woodpecker, Nuttall's wood- 

 pecker, white-headed woodpecker, Si- 

 erra three-toed woodpecker, red-naped 

 sapsucker, red-breasted sapsucker, Wil- 

 liamson's sapsucker, northern pileated 

 woodpecker, Lewis' woodpecker, red- 

 shafted flicker, western nighthawk, 

 black swift, white-throated swift, black- 

 chinned hummingbird, broad-tailed hum- 

 mingbird, rufous hummingbird, cal- 

 liope hummingbird, ash-throated fly- 

 catcher, olive-sided flycatcher, western 

 wood pewee, Hammond's flycatcher, 

 Wright's flycatcher, gray flycatcher, 

 blue-fronted jay, California jay, gray 

 jay, Clark's nutcracker, pinyon jay, 

 tricolored blackbird, Bullock's oriole, 

 Brewer's blackbird, western evening 

 grosbeak, California pine grosbeak, 

 Cassin's purple finch, Mexican crossbill, 

 green-backed goldfinch, pine siskin, 



white-crowned sparrow, Thurber's junco, 

 western chipping sparrow, black-chinned 

 sparrow, mountain song sparrow, Lin- 

 coln's sparrow, thick-billed fox spar- 

 row (northerly), Stephens 1 fox sparrow 

 (southerly), spurred towhee, green- 

 tailed towhee, black-headed grosbeak, 

 Lazule bunting, western tanager, west- 

 ern martin, western warbling vireo, 

 Cassin's vireo, gray vireo (Cajon Pass 

 and south), Calaveras warbler, hermit 

 warbler, lutescent warbler, Audubon's 

 warbler, black-throated gray warbler, 

 Townsend's warbler, Macgillivray's war- 

 bler, golden pileolated warbler, Cali- 

 fornia thrasher, rock wren, dotted 

 canyon wren, western house wren, 

 western winter wren, Sierra creeper, 

 slender-billed nuthatch, red-breasted 

 nuthatch, pygmy nuthatch, gray tit- 

 mouse, mountain chickadee, lead-col- 

 ered bush-tit, western golden-crowned 

 kinglet, ruby-crowned kinglet, Town- 

 send's solitaire, Sierra hermit thrush, 

 western robin, western bluebird, moun- 

 tain bluebird. 



Breeding birds whose habitat is gener- 

 ally limited to the preforest or other 

 early stages of succession include the 

 western vesper sparrow and the Cali- 

 fornia yellow warbler. 



Breeding birds whose habitat is 

 limited to the presence of water, gener- 

 ally a local condition, include the follow- 

 ing : merganser, hooded merganser, wood 

 duck, Harlequin duck, spotted sand- 

 piper, and dipper. 



5. POPLAR GROVE SAVANNA BIOTA 



("PARK STEPPE" OF HARDY) 



A narrow strip skirting the coniferous 

 forest on the west and south in Min- 

 nesota, Wisconsin, Manitoba, Saskat- 

 chewan and Alberta. It consists of 

 groves of poplar or low shrubs, the 

 former with characteristic forest edge 

 lying in a mesophytic prairie. In 

 some localities the grassland forms 

 islands. The mammals include forest 

 bison (Bison bison athabascae), mule 

 deer (Odocoileus hemionus*), skunk (Me- 

 phitis hudsonica), raccoon (Procyon I. 

 lotor), and red fox (Vulpes fulva). 



