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as from nuts, and throughout the mountains we saw many chestnut seed- 
lings. Their growth is limited, however, for when they reach a certain 
stage, the fungus goes to work and soon reaps a deadly result. A forester 
who knows the blight well and has tried all the recognized methods of stop- 
ping it in vain told me that the only hope for the chestnut is a slim one. 
When there are practically no chestnuts left for the fungus to live on, it 
will die off in enormous numbers — unless it finds another tree to success- 
fully parasitize. If a few chestnuts can be saved, and these seedlings con- 
tinue to survive until the fungus is gone, the chestnut could come back and 
perhaps eventually occupy its former niche in the American forest. 
Under the oaks and dead chestnuts in the Blue Ridge flourished a rich 
and varied shrub stratum. Wherever moisture was present, rhododendron, 
mountain laurel, menziesea, and azalea grew profusely, and in ravine heads 
hemlock enjoyed the wet habitat sufficiently to mingle with its deciduous 
neighbors. The forests rang continually with songs. One high sweet trill 
I followed down came from a busy black and white warbler, hunting for 
insects in every crack and crevice of a large cucumber tree. Acadian 
flycatchers called demandingly from perches between swoops at moving 
victims, and along the isolated mountain roads white outer tail feathers of 
Carolina juncos flashed as the birds darted into the forest. There were 
Virginia deer here, too. We knew it without seeing them by the tell-tale 
browsing line on trees and shrubs. Missing sprouts at the tip of branches, 
vines with no leaves up to deer level and little reproduction of new shoots 
and seedlings were ample testimony to the presence of Bambi’s relatives. 
There is a vast difference between the flora and fauna of the southern 
Appalachians and the northern mountains of the same chain. Each region 
has its own charm. But if one were to search for an area exactly inter- 
mediate between the White Mountains and Adirondacks of the north and 
the Carolina Blue Ridge of the south, he might well begin and end in the 
Cheat Range of West Virginia. For here, in a southern latitude, reaches 
down along the mountain tops a fragment of the Canadian forest, the home 
of hermit thrushes, white weasels, and snowshoe rabbits. Our group spent 
three days in this region last summer and were fortunate to have Dr. 
Maurice Brooks of West Virginia University as our guide, a man who has 
known these mountains since boyhood.* 
We discovered on our first climb that the forests of the region vary in 
character and show marked altitudinal zonation. Four types stood out 
prominently: (1) oak-chestnut, (2) northern hardwoods, (8) northern 
mixed forest and (4) red spruce-yellow birch. 
Oak-chestnut forests occupied the lowest points, extending roughly to 
elevations of around 2,500 feet. The oaks, hickories, dead chestnuts, and 
other plants resembled closely a southern oak-chestnut community. But 
the birds differed, there being an intermixture of northern and southern 
types, such as least flycatchers and black-throated green warblers with 
white-eyed vireos, hooded and Kentucky warblers. Apparently the combi- 
nation of warm days and cool nights is satisfactory to large numbers of 
*T am indebted to Dr. Brooks in person and to his article in The Cardinal, July, 
1943, for much of this information on Cheat Mountain forests and birds. 
