Viewing page 30 of 32

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

34    SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

wrens. Copperhead snakes are very plentiful in this region, and under one rock 26 of them were discovered.

We returned to Cranberry Glades, where we lived in a government cabin. With squirrel traps on the trees and mouse traps on the ground we caught a number of specimens, among which was a new form of flying squirrel, since named by Gerrit S. Miller, Jr., of the National Museum. This form is somewhat similar to the small flying squirrel of the East, but is larger and redder in color. It is related to the Canadian species. Among the most interesting birds collected from there were a nestling saw-whet owl and a new subspecies of song sparrow. Cranberry Glades proved most fruitful for birds and mammals. 

For the next 6 days we camped on Shavers River in the Cheat Mountains. There we obtained a fine series of bird and mouse skins and more specimens of the flying squirrel mentioned above. These mountains are cool and damp, with fog every night, unlike others of the same altitude in other parts of the State. Deciduous and spruce trees thrive on the mountains, and balsam firs grow in the valleys. From here we went to the Middle Mountain, where we stayed in a forest ranger's cabin in a spruce forest. One morning as we started out we discovered tracks that seemed to be those of a puma, indicating that this animal may still live in the spruce forests of West Virginia. After making a profitable collection there, we returned to Washington July 10. 

We left Washington for the autumn collecting on September 15, 1936. At Durbin, W. Va., we obtained the necessary permission to camp on Spruce Knob, the altitude of which is 4,860 feet. Our camp was 4,550 feet, and we were usually surrounded by clouds. As ravens abound there, we could hear them croaking most of the time. We added materially to the collection while we were there, in spite of the foggy and rainy weather. We learned from the old inhabitants that some time ago several porcupines had been killed on the lower ridges of the Knob. 

After a stop at Summersville, we continued to Flat Top and Cherry Pond Mountains, in the coal-mining region, where numerous birds and mammals were obtained. Returning to Huntington, we collected along the Ohio River up to Point Pleasant, making a fairly representative collection there. We then headed for home, stopping for 2 days at White Sulphur Springs, where we obtained the small subspecies of flying squirrel for which we had searched in the spring. 

The success of this expedition was due largely to the courtesies and cooperation extended to us by local landowners and by the Conservation Commission of West Virginia.