280 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
Sorex fumeus Miller (95, p. 50) Peterboro, Madison co. 
Sorex macrurus Batchelder (’96 b, p. 133) Keene Heights, 
Essex Co. 
Pipistrellus subflavus obscurus Miller (97 c, p. 93) Lake 
George. 
Vesperiitio borealis Miiller (776, p. 20) New York state. 
Vespertilio gryphus F, Cuvier (’32, p. 15) Vicinity of New York 
city. 
Vespertilio salari F. Cuvier (’32, p. 15) Vicinity of New York city. 
Vespertilio crassus F. Cuvier (’32, p. 18) Vicinity of New York city. 
Vespertitio caroli Temminck (’35-41, p. 237) Vicinity of New York 
city. 
Atalapha fuscata Rafinesque (’20, p. 2) Northern New York. 
LIFE ZONES OF NEW YORK 
The importance of an acquaintance with the life areas of a region as a 
key to the geographic distribution of its animals and plants is hardly to 
be overestimated. Indeed one of the most significant of recent develop- 
ments in faunal zoology is the growing recognition of this fact. Such 
knowledge furnishes a ready and exact means of defining the ranges of 
species without the tedious enumeration of isolated localities, and 
offers moreover an explanation of the principal factor governing ~ 
those associations of species that constitute local faunae and florae. ! 
Briefly defined, a life zone is a transcontinental area bounded by 
certain isothermal lines and characterized by relative uniformity of 
fauna and flora. Together with the isotherms a life zone normally 
extends in an approximately east and west direction, but both are sub- 
ject to endless deviations. Elevations in the surface of the earth 
cause the life zones to bend to the southward, often many hundreds 
of miles beyond their normal sea-level position, while hot, dry plains 
have an opposite, though less, effect. Furthermore a zone is not neces- 
sarily continuous. It often happens that isolated hills and mountains 
reach a sufficient hight to have about their summits the climatic condi- 
tions characteristic of a more northerly zone than that at their bases. If 
there has ever been direct means of communication between such an 
isolated zonal island and the main body of the life area to which it be- 
longs, its fauna will more closely resemble that of the latter than that of 
the immediately contiguous region.? This is however to a certain degree 
1 In this connection see especially Miller, ’98. 
2 On mountains situated far enough south and rising to a sufficlent altitude, several successive 
zones will be encountered between base and summit (see Merriam, ’90). 
