THE SUMMER BIRDS OF WESTERN MARYLAND 



BY 



EDWARD A. PREBLE 



During the summer of 1899 three short trips were made to west- 

 ern Maryland for the purpose of studying its fauna and flora in the 

 joint interests of the U. S. Department of Agriculture and the Mary- 

 land Geological Survey. The time spent in the field aggregated 

 about a month. Special attention was paid to birds and mammals 

 the plants, for lack of time, being merely noted incidentally with 

 reference to their bearing on the different life areas of the region. 



A short preliminary trip was made in May. Reaching Frostburg, 

 near the western border of Allegany county, eleven miles west of 

 Cumberland, a suitable place for a few days' work was found in 

 Finzel, a postoffice near the northeast corner of Garrett county, about 

 a mile and a half west of the main ridge of Great Savage Mountain, 

 at this point having an altitude of nearly 3000 feet. Finzel lies some 

 400 feet lower. About midway in distance and altitude between 

 Finzel and Great Savage lies Little Savage Mountain. These ridges 

 are covered with a rather sparse growth of oaks and chestnuts. In 

 the shallow depression between them is a dense swamp, the main 

 source of Savage river. This swamp is densely grown up to hemlock 

 (Tsuga canadensis), black spruce (Picea mariana), tamarack (Larix 

 laricina) and several other species, with a dense undergrowth com- 

 posed mainly of Rhododendron maximum. To the west of Finzel 

 the country is cut up by numerous ridges mainly covered with oak 

 and chestnut, the intervening valleys being rather swampy and tra- 

 versed by small brooks, and usually clothed with heavy forest, hem- 

 lock and rhododendron predominating and often extending nearly to 

 the summit of the ridges on their western slopes. 



