216 FAUNAL DIVISIONS OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 



as an undergrowth of bracken (Pteridium aquilinum), sweet fern (Comptonia) 

 smilax (S. glauca) , wild indigo (Baptisia tinctoria) , sheep laurel (Kalmia angusti- 

 folia), blueberry and huckleberry bushes (Vaccinium vacillans and Gaylussatia 

 baccata) , sweet goldenrod (Solidago odora) , and other no less characteristic forms 



One of the most characteristic birds of this region is the prairie warbler 

 (Dendroica discolor). Other species of birds find a congenial habitat here also 

 although by no means confined to such areas, as the thrasher ( Toxostoma rufum) 

 the whip-poor-will (Antrostomus vociferus), the chewink (Pipilo) and others. 

 In the South Carolina "Pine Woods" certain species of sparrow (Peucea) are 

 exceedingly characteristic and local. 



The Coastal Plain as a whole presents a very remarkable history in the 

 succession of its life forms. As stated above it is the latest area of land added 

 to the eastern portion of the continent, and represents an uplift of marginal 

 sea-bottom of Tertiary and Quaternary age. This uplift was probably a slow 

 movement by the addition of beaches between which and the older land lagoons 

 were formed and these later, through sod growth and soil accumulation, became 

 the more permanent dry land of the Coastal Plain . Over this area the vegetation 

 of the older land must have slowly spread as the soil conditions became suitable. 

 The rivers, crossing this Coastal Plain from the Piedmont to the sea, spread 

 rich alluvial deposits over their wide flood-plains and these meadow-soils became 

 the site of the alluvial or bottomland type of forest with its characteristic flora 

 and fauna. In the areas of Tertiary sands the characteristic types of the Pine 

 Barrens developed. During the glacial period there was undoubtedly con- 

 siderable crowding of types, both of animals and plants, throughout this coastal 

 plain region, but its low relief, its mild climate, and the nature of its soils tended 

 to foster a large southern element of the biota which probably spread to the 

 north and east from some Gulf border center of dispersal. In its earlier history 

 the Coastal Plain was first a fringe of beaches and lagoons, the habitat of species 

 still found in these situations. Later this maritime fringe was filled in, here by 

 sands, there by river alluvium, each slowly invaded by its characteristic biotic 

 types, while a later line of marshes developed along its sea-front. It seems to me 

 that we have in this coastal plain region remarkably characteristic types of 

 vegetation and fauna clearly related to each other and to soil conditions, as 

 factors in their distribution, rather than to an entire control by climate. Cli- 

 matic conditions, as heat and moisture, are not to be ignored by any means, but 

 as controling the distribution of animal species these factors are no more effective, 

 undoubtedly in some cases less so, than are the character of the soil, influencing 

 the nature of the vegetation, and the geological history of the land. 



Other Faunal Areas 



The wide expanse of treeless, grass-covered country known as the "prairies 

 that stretches from the western edge of the Atlantic forest over the valley ot 

 the Mississippi, passing beyond the 100th meridian into the higher and drier 



