THE TRANSITION ZONE. 27 



FRUITS — continued. 



Plums. 



De Soto. Forest Oarden. 



Stratvberries. 



Bubach No. 5. Jessie. 



Captain Jack. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



White potatoes. 



Flax. 



Sugar beet. 



(c) The Pacific Coast Transition Faunal Aeba. 



The humid Pacific Coast division of the Transition zone comprises 

 the western parts of Washington and Oregon between the coast moun- 

 tains and the Cascade Range, parts of northern California, and most 

 of the coast region of California from near Cape Mendocino south- 

 ward to the Santa Barbara Mountains. To the south and east it 

 passes into the Arid Transition, and in places into the Upper Sonoran. 



In the Pacific Transition area unusual conditions prevail. The 

 region as a whole is one of great humidity, and in places on the north- 

 west coast the annual rainfall reaches 100 inches. The northern and 

 more humid part is covered by a magnificent coniferous forest, car- 

 peted with moss and ferns, and often choked with undergrowth. 

 The prevailing trees are Douglas fir, Pacific cedar, Western hemlock, 

 and Sitka spruce, whose majestic trunks attain an average height of 

 more than 200 feet. There are also many broad-leaf maples, tree 

 alders, madroiias and Western dogwoods, and numerous kinds of 

 shrubs,^ a goodly proportion of which aspire to the size of small trees. 

 Among the birds which inhabit these forests are the dark Pacific 

 Coast forms of the great-horned, spotted, screech, and pigmy owls, 

 the sooty grouse and handsome Oregon ruffed grouse, Steller's jay, the 

 chestnut-backed chickadee, and the Pacific winter wren. Among the 

 mammals are the Columbia black-tail deer, Western raccoon, Oregon 

 spotted skunk, Doug^las red squirrel, Townsend's chipmunk, peculiar 

 species of pocket gophers and voles, the curious Gibb's mole, and the 

 remarkable tailless sewellel {Aplodontia rufa). 



In the Puget Sound region and most of the cultivated parts of 

 western Washington the annual rainfall is 50 to 60 inches; in western 

 Oregon it is still less, decreasing in the Willamette, Umpqua, and 

 Rogue River valleys from about 50 to less than 30 inches. ^ In the 



'Among the small shrubs perhaps noae are more characteristic and wide- 

 spread than the salal (Gaultheria slmllon), thimble berry (Rubus nootkanus), 

 salmon berry (Rubus spectdbilis) , Oxegan grape (Berberis nervosa), and in wet 

 places the devil's club {Ecliinopanax liorridum). 



■^Rainfall of the Pacific Slope and the Western States and Territories, by Gen. 

 A. W. Greely, Chief Signal Officer, and Lieut. W. A. Glassford, assistant, 1888. 



