The steep slopes from the upland to the valley floor are now mostly wooded, and the population of skinks is chiefly in this band of woodland. Some of the hillsides that have relatively gentle slopes are treeless and are used for pasture, or are even under cultivation. Where second growth forest is present its aspect differs depending upon slope, exposure, and past treatment. Osage orange and honey locust are aggressive invaders on some dry hillside pastures, and in this type of woods the skinks are scarce or absent. Some hillside areas, especially on moist north slopes have thick second-growth woods, in which elm is usually the principal tree, with several oaks and hickories, walnut, hackberry, coffee tree, locust and osage orange, and with a dense understory vegetation of dogwood, gooseberry and coralberry, with vine tangles of grape, poison oak, and greenbrier. Such woodlands provide little food for livestock, and are often fenced off from adjacent pastures. The shading creates conditions unfavorable for skinks and they are relatively scarce in the denser woods. They are much more numerous in woodlands that are fenced in with pastures heavily grazed by cattle or horses, with understory vegetation kept cropped back, and with more open ground and patches of sunlight. However, they are absent or scarce in woods that have been subjected over periods of years to browsing, by sheep or goats, so heavily that hardly any herbaceous vegetation remains and so heavily that the soil is packed from trampling. Along the upper slopes, especially about heads of gullies, in areas strewn with flat rocks, in fairly open mixed woods, with some decaying wood on the ground, habitat conditions are most nearly optimum for the skinks. Artificial habitat features, such as rock piles, stone walls, wood piles, rail fences, or old deserted buildings and sheds, with loose boards lying about on the ground may support unusually high concentrations of skinks when the surrounding habitat is favorable. STUDY AREAS The University of Kansas Natural History Reservation where most of the field work for this study was done, has been described in a recent publication (Fitch 1952:8). While records were obtained from scattered points throughout the 590-acre Reservation and elsewhere in northeastern Kansas, field study of this skink was concentrated on four relatively small areas totalling only about ten acres in extent (Figure 26). These areas were selected on the basis of abundance and availability of the skinks, and of variety of habitat conditions represented.