1^2 2 Rives, Summer Birds of West Virgiftia. April 



West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh R. R. being the only one 

 that has yet really entered into it." 



The region of spruce thus described, consists of a lofty plateau 

 lying almost exclusively to the west of the main Alleghany range, 

 varying in altitude from 2500 to 3000 feet and traversed in a 

 general northerly and southerly direction by various mountain 

 ridges five to fifteen hundred feet higher, the maximum elevation 

 above sea level being about 4700 feet. It contains in its north- 

 ern portion the sources of the Cheat and North Branch of the 

 Potomac Rivers and in its southern, the head waters of the 

 Greenbrier, a branch of the New River. 



The area of which in particular I speak is drained by the 

 Blackwater River with its tributaries, which rising in the so-called 

 Canaan valley flows tranquilly at an unusually high altitude for 

 nearly a dozen miles, with a fall of probably not more than one 

 hundred and fifty feet in that distance, until reaching the steep 

 western edge of the plateau it plunges swiftly downwards to enter 

 the Dry Fork of Cheat River. The sources of the Blackwater 

 and of the North Branch of the Potomac, it may be remarked, 

 are separated by an almost imperceptible difference of level. 

 This section of the country maintained its primitive wildness 

 until about fifteen years ago, when the West Virginia Central and 

 Pittsburgh R. R. penetrated its forests and the town of Davis was 

 established at the junction of Beaver Creek with the Blackwater, 

 not far from the picturesque falls of the latter stream. In com- 

 pany with Mr. Bancel LaFarge I spent the period from June 4 

 to June 12, 1 89 1, at Davis, finding the general aspect similar to 

 that of Maine or northern Wisconsin, rather than in accordance 

 with one's preconceived ideas of a southern State, and the avi- 

 fauna, as might have been anticipated, markedly Canadian and 

 Alleghanian in character, whereas in most other parts of the Vir- 

 ginia mountains, where the above faunae exist, we usually find 

 them overlapped by the Carolinian. No one, however, who now 

 visits the Blackwater country will find a region of exclusively 

 virgin forests such as is described in the writings to which I have 

 referred. Saw-mills, tanneries, pulp mills and lumber camps 

 stand where the timid deer formerly came to slake its thirst and 

 the ponderous and unwieldly bear found an unmolested abode, 



