The Breeding Warblers of the Central Allegheny Mountain Region
December, 1940 THE WILSON BULLETIN 249 Vol. 52. No. 4 THE BREEDING WARBLERS OF THE CENTRAL ALLEGHENY MOUNTAIN REGION BY MAURICE BROOKS OUNTAIN masses, and the interpretation of their plant and M animal life, present a standing challenge to the biologist. The Appalachian mountain system, being of moderate elevation and located in mid-latitude regions, does not exhibit the striking con- trasts to be found in high altitude mountains of more southern regions, where a climb of a few miles may take the observer from the tropical to the arctic-alpine; nevertheless our eastern ranges have been a haven of refuge for land forms since Palaeozoic times and have their fascinating problems of modern, as well as ancient, natural history. THE AREA The area with which this paper deals is centered roughly between the northern and southern extremities of the Appalachian system, and embraces the mountainous poition of western Maryland, all of West Virginia west of the Shenandoah valley, and portions of Frederick, Shenandoah, Rockingham, Augusta, Highland, Bath, Alleghany,r Craig, Giles, Bland, and Tazewell counties, Virginia. Thus it includes all of the Allegheny ridges between the Great Valley of Virginia and the Ohio River, from the Pennsylvania border on the north to the southern extremity of West Virginia. The “Ridge and Valley province” (of F enneman, 1938) lying directly east of this territory, and the high Blue Ridge peaks of southwestern Virginia are excluded, since it is felt that their biotic conditions differ in a number of essentials from those of the area under consideration. From the ornithological standpoint, the region is remarkably homogeneous,, although the boundaries are somewhat arbitrary.
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