Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/386

374 underwoods, where a chipping sparrow is never found, remind the ornithologist that he is on the edge of the Carolinian zone, for these and the handsome Kentucky warbler find their breeding limit on the northern confines of this fauna.

One of the most characteristic birds of this region, and yet one of the most unfamiliar, is the curious barn owl, which makes its home in certain low tracts of woodland south of Philadelphia. Those of us who were brought up on the transatlantic story books of a generation ago know this bird as the strange-faced "staring owl" of our childish fancies. The barn owl of this country is only a geographical race of this long familiar owl of the English towers and belfries.

The turkey buzzard, though frequently observed as far north as southern New England, is never found abundantly beyond the Carolinian fauna. It nests among the rocks, often in communities of considerable size, in southern Pennsylvania, and winters in southern New Jersey. Almost any day from April to November numbers of turkey buzzards may be seen in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, soaring on motionless wing, often at a great height, or gathering in large flocks over the woods to feast on the carcass of some animal. Farther south, especially toward the coast, the turkey buzzard becomes less abundant where the black vulture or carrion crow, a closely related species that scarcely ever occurs north of Charleston, takes its place.

A notable mammal of the southern realm is at home in the woodland tracts of this region. The opossum is quite as abundant along the northern edge of the Carolinian fauna in southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey as it is farther south, but is rarely found north of this locality on the Atlantic seaboard. Its nocturnal habits preclude it from ordinary observation, and only in the autumn and early winter, when tempted into some rabbit snare or caught in its predatory midnight rambles and its fat body swings before the market door, are we aware that this curious marsupial dwells in our midst. From the Delaware southward a fat "’possum" is the delight of the darkey, and most toothsome is it indeed if caught in a persimmon tree after feeding on the frost-ripened fruit. A less common mammal is the little gray fox, which formerly was much more abundant on the northern range of the Carolinian fauna than it is at the present day. The gray fox must be the "Brer Fox" of Uncle Remus, for the more familiar and larger red fox of the Northern States does not range far beyond the limits of the transition zone. The red fox is now the most abundant species in southeastern Pennsylvania, and this may be due to a difference in habits. The gray fox makes his lair under the roots of a tree or a shelving rock, while the red fox tunnels out a burrowlike den underground. With