4 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 
south, nearly or quite to the Indiana line, and the same is true of white pine. 
“One seldom beholds a drearier sight than a dead and deserted lumber 
region. The valuable trees were all felled years ago, and the lumberman 
moved on to fresh spoils, leaving behind an inextricably confused mass of 
tree tops, broken logs, and uprooted trunks. Blackberry canes spring up 
everywhere, forming a tangled thicket, and a few scattering poplars, birches, 
and cherries serve for arboreal life, above which tower the dead pines, bleached 
in the weather and blackened by fire, destitute of limbs, and looking at a 
distance not unlike the masts of some great harbor. Thousands of such 
acres, repellant alike to botanist and settler, can be seen in any of our northern 
counties. 
“In certain districts considerable beech is found associated with the pine. 
The soil of such tracts is usually of better quality, and can be rendered pro- 
ductive without much labor. It may be noted that in such cases the pine 
also grows thriftier and makes better lumber.” 
DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMAL LIFE. 
According to Dr. C. Hart Merriam, our highest authority on geographical 
distribution of life in America, Michigan contains large areas of three of the 
main life zones of the eastern United States; namely, the Upper Austral 
or Carolinian Zone, the Transition or Alleghanian Zone, and the lower Boreal 
or Canadian Zone. 
“The Carolinian faunal area occupies the larger part of the Middle States, 
except the mountains, covering southeastern South Dakota, * * * 
nearly the whole of Iowa, * * * Illinois, Indiana, Ohio * * * and 
large areas in New York, Michigan and Southern Ontario. On the Atlantic 
coast it reaches from near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay to southern Con- 
necticut, and sends narrow arms up the valleys of the Connecticut and 
Hudson rivers. A little farther west another slender arm is sent northward, 
following the east shore of Lake Michigan nearly or quite to Grand Traverse 
Bay. These arms, like nearly all narrow northward prolongations of southern 
zones, do not carry the complete faunas and floras of the areas to which 
they belong, but lack certain species from the start and become more and 
more dilute to the northward till it is hard to say where they really end. 
Their northern boundaries, therefore, must be drawn arbitrarily or must be 
based on the presence or absence of particular species rather than the usual 
association of species. 
“Counting from the north, the Carolinian area is that in which the sassafras, 
tulip tree, hackberry, sycamore, sweet gum, rose magnolia, red bud, per- 
simmon, and short-leaf pine first make their appearance, together with the 
opossum, gray fox, fox squirrel, cardinal bird, Carolina wren, tufted tit, 
gnatcatcher, summer tanager, and yellow-breasted chat. Chestnuts, hickory 
nuts, hazelnuts, and walnuts grow wild in abundance. The area is of very 
great agricultural importance.” (Merriam. Life Zones and Crop Zones 
of the U. §., Biol. Survey, Bull. 10, 1898, pp. 30-31.) 
According to the same author “The Canadian zone comprises the southern 
part of the great transcontinental coniferous forest of Canada, the northern 
parts of Maine, New Hampshire, and Michigan * * * and the greater 
part of the high mountains of the United States and Mexico * * #* 
Among the many characteristic mammals and birds of the Canadian zone 
are the lynx, marten, porcupine, northern red and pine squirrels, varying 
and snowshoe rabbits, star-nose, Brewer’s and Gibbs’ moles, water shrew, 
