COLLECTING BIRDS AND MAMMALS IN 

 SOUTH CAROLINA 



By W. M. PERRYGO 



Scientific Aid, Department of Biology 



U. S. National Museum 



Last year (1939) our intensive work in the collection of birds and 

 mammals for the National Museum was carried on in North Carolina. 

 In 1940 it was arranged to follow up that work with investigations 

 in South Carolina, making a special study of the southern end of the 

 Appalachian Range and the southern forms along the coastal plain. 

 Through the courtesy of A. A. Richardson, Commissioner of Game 

 and Fishes, Columbia, S. C, officials of the National Forests, and 

 land owners we were able to make the necessary arrangements. 



Leaving Washington April 8, with J. S. Y. Hoyt as assistant, we 

 began work near Conway, in Horry County, collecting in the flat pine 

 woods, in cypress swamps, and in the salt marshes near the coast. 

 Our 10-day stay here netted many interesting and desirable speci- 

 mens. Then moving south westward farther toward the interior of 

 the coastal plain we settled in Dorchester County near St. George, 

 working along the drainage of the Edisto River. Most of our collect- 

 ing was done in the cypress swamps, in open pine woods, and near 

 the edges of cotton fields. 



Next we moved to Hardeeville to investigate the Lower Austrori- 

 parian life zone as it occurs in the extreme southern portion of the 

 State. Most of our work was done in Beaufort County in the cypress 

 and deciduous swamps, and through abandoned farms, salt marshes, 

 and islands — the latter including Hilton Head. Painted buntings and 

 chuck-wills-widows were very common, and bird life in general was 

 much more abundant than in previous areas. 



We then moved northwestward into the Piedmont region in the 

 vicinity of Union, working Union and Newberry Counties in Sumter 

 National Forest. In old broom-sedge fields we found Bachman's 

 sparrows, and along the streams were the usual types of birds oc- 

 curring in such localities. Journeying southwestward along the Sa- 

 vannah River, we settled at McCormick, where again the Sumter 

 National Forest offered us ample collecting grounds over the pine- 

 covered rolling hills in McCormick, Edgefield, and Abbeville Coun- 

 ties. One of the most interesting finds here was the nesting of the 

 mountain vireos which we had known elsewhere only in more 

 elevated regions in the mountains. While here J. C. Calhoun joined 

 us to assist primarily in mammal collecting. 



