4 



NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA 66 



The Coastal Plain receives between 40 and 44 inches each year. Calvert 

 County is one of the driest areas of the State and receives only about 

 S6 inches yearly. 



EFFECTS OF CIVILIZATION 



Maryland, like most other eastern States, has no truly virgin areas. 

 Even in the remotest regions of the western part of the State, logging 

 has been conducted, and fields and pastures range well up onto the sides 

 of the mountains. Some of the wildest parts of the State, until quite 

 recently, were the marshes that lined both the eastern and the western 

 sides of Chesapeake Bay and those along the Atlantic Ocean. With the 

 expanding populations of both Washington and Baltimore seeking 

 areas for summer recreation, many of these marshes are being drained 

 and "improved" for human habitation. In addition, easy access is now 

 available to the outer barrier beach on Assateague Island. The subur- 

 ban communities of all the larger cities of the State are spreading 

 farther and farther into the countryside and have eliminated some 

 fine woods, swamps, and meadows. This is particularly true of Balti- 

 more and Washington, the suburbs of which now extend 25 miles or 

 more into the surrounding country. As a result, the site where the only 

 specimen of the rare pigmy shrew, Microsorex hoyi loinnemana, has 

 ever been taken in Maryland is now part of a housing project, and the 

 southeasternmost Coastal Plain locality for the southern bog lemming, 

 Synaptomys cooperi^ has met the same fate. Nevertheless, a number 

 of areas remain in Maryland which are relatively isolated and which 

 support a varied and abundant mammal fauna. Some species, such as 

 the white-tailed deer and the cottontail rabbit, have actually profited 

 by the changes man has brought to the State. 



PRINCIPAL BIOTIC OR NATURAL 

 AREAS IN MARYLAND 



Maryland lies in 5 major physiographic provinces (Fenneman, 

 1938) : Coastal Plain, Piedmont, Blue Ridge, Ridge and Valley, and 

 Appalachian Plateaus. 



There are three major forest regions (as described by Braun, 1960) 

 in Maryland which correspond roughly to these physiographic prov- 

 inces. They are the Oak-Pine Forest, the Oak-Chestnut Forest, and the 

 Mixed Mesophytic Forest. Stewart and Robbins (1958) divide these 

 major forest regions of Maryland into biotic or natural sections that 

 represent areas showing floral or faunal differences of a secondary 

 nature. They divide the Oak-Pine Forest region into an Eastern Shore 

 section, an Upper Chesapeake Bay section, and a Western Shore sec- 



