the central Gulf area. In July the condition is reversed. Beginning in east central Texas, the amount of precipitation falls off rapidly to less than 20 inches in the western part of that state. Naturally, droughts are most frequent there. (See maps 6 and 7.)

Climatic provinces similarly located with reference to the land masses and rainfall are found in South America, Asia, Africa, and Australia. The related South American province includes Uruguay and adjacent portions of Brazil and Argentina. The Asiatic province covers northern and central China. The analogous Australian province embraces most of New South Wales and the southeastern part of Queensland, while the African province is a very small territory in

MAP 6.-Average annual rainfall in the Southeast (in inches). (After Paullin and Wright.)

the eastern part of Cape Colony and the lands adjacent toward the north. (See map 8.) Later I shall institute a comparison between the cultures of the inhabitants of these several regions.

Life zones (map 9).-Biologists have classified the territory occupied by the tribes which are the subject of the present bulletin as follows (numbers and letters refer to those on the map (p. 9)):

Boreal Region:

Canadian Zone: A few of the higher summits of the Allegheny Mountains (1). Austral Region:

Transition Zone

Mountains in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and a bit of northern Georgia (2). Upper Austral Zone:

The Carolinian Faunal Area: Including the Piedmont Plateau from the Potomac River through the central parts of Virginia, and North Carolina, northwestern South Carolina, northern Georgia, the northeastern corner

MAP 7.-Drought frequencies in the Southeast. Portion of a map of the Weather Bureau, United States Department of Agriculture, showing the number of periods of 30 consecutive days or more without 0.25 inch of precipitation in 24 hours during the season MarchSeptember, inclusive, for the period 1895-1914. The smallest number is 6 or below, the highest 33 or above. (After Paullin and Wright.)

of Alabama, central Tennessee, and thence northward, including nearly all of Kentucky and western West Virginia, as also the Ozark Plateau of Arkansas (3b).

The Upper Sonoran Faunal Area: Not entering into the section under consideration, but indicated in the margin of the map toward the northwest (3a).

3a

2aD

The Austroriparian Faunal Area: Occupying all of the remainder of the Gulf States and the South Atlantic States except the southernmost third of the Floridian peninsula (4b).

The Lower Sonoran Faunal Area: Not entering into the section under consideration, but indicated at the margin of the map toward the west (4a). Tropical Region: Including merely the southernmost third of the peninsula of Florida (5).

In his bulletin on Life Zones and Crop Zones of the United States, printed in 1898, Merriam thus epitomizes the characteristic animal and plant life of the above regions, omitting those of the Canadian

MAP 9.-Biotic areas in the Southeast (from the Fourth Provisional Zone Map of North America of the U. S. Biological Survey, by C. Hart Merriam, Vernon Bailey, E. W. Nelson, and E. A. Preble, 1910).

Zone, which is of slight importance in the Southeast, and the two Sonoran areas, which are entirely beyond it:

In the Alleghanian faunal area the chestnut, walnut, oaks, and hickories of the South meet and overlap the beech, birch, hemlock, and sugar maple of the North; the Southern mole and cottontail rabbit meet the Northern star-nosed and Brewer's moles and varying hare, and the Southern bobwhite, Baltimore oriole, bluebird, catbird, chewink, thrasher, and wood thrush live in or near the haunts of the bobolink, solitary vireo, and the hermit and Wilson's thrushes. Several native nuts, of which the beechnut, butternut, chestnut, hazelnut, hickory nut, and walnut are most important, grow wild in this belt. Of these, the chestnut, hickory nut, and walnut come in from the South (Carolinian area) and do not extend much beyond the southern or warmer parts of the Alleghanian area. (Merriam, 1898, pp. 20-21.)