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. 

 Vespertilio borealis Miiller ('76, p. 20) New York state. 

 Vespertilio gryphus F. Cuvier ('32, p. 15) Vicinity of New York 



city. 

 Vespertilio salarii F. Cuvier ('32, p. 15) Vicinity of New York city. 

 Vespertilio crassus F. Cuvier ('32, p. 18) Vicinity of New York city. 

 Vespertilio caroli Temminck ('35-41, p. 237) Vicinity of New York 



city. f 



Atalapha fuscata Rafmesque ('20, p. 2) Northern New York. 



EIFE 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 denning 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. x 

 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 oiten 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. 2 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 sufficient altitude, several successive 

 zones will be encountered between base and summit (see Merriam, '90). 



