THE FAUNA AND FLORA 



THE LIFE ZONES AND AREAS OF ALLEGANY 



COUNTY 



BY 



C. HART MERRIAM 



The best guide to the agricultural capabilities of a region is afforded 

 by the distribution of the native animals and plants; for experience 

 has shown that areas characterized in a state of nature by the presence 

 of particular species are adapted to the cultivation of particular 

 varieties of agricultural crops. The importance of this fact is so 

 great that the national government has been engaged for years in a 

 biological survey of the United States with a view to determining the 

 boundaries of the areas inhabited by different associations of animals 

 and plants. 



It has been found that North America may be divided primarily 

 into two vast regions : a northern or Boreal, and a southern or Austral, 

 according to the sources from which the native animals and plants 

 were derived. The boundary between these areas lies, in the main, 

 north of the United States, but disconnected arms or tongues of the 

 Boreal area push far southward into the United States along the sum- 

 mits of the higher mountain ranges the Alleghanies in the east 

 and the Rocky Mountains and Sierra-Cascade system in the far west. 



The state of Maryland, owing to its southern position, is in the 

 southern or Austral region, but the high mountains in the western 

 part of the state are so much colder than the lower lands on the east 

 that their summits are in places inhabited by species characteristic of 

 the northern or Boreal region. Excepting these small mountain 

 summits, the total area of which is insignificant, Maryland lies wholly 



