the rocks provided some afternoon shade. This rock pile provided shelter for reptiles other than the five-lined skink--especially the garter snake, water snake, copperhead, and brown skink. Another area of about two and a fourth acres ("Skink Woods," Figure 21) was the one most productive of skinks. It is a wooded upper slope adjacent to a hilltop pasture. Along the hilltop rim the upper stratum of the Oread limestone presents a rock face as much as four feet high at the north end, but less exposed at the south end where it was partly covered by deposited soil. Approximately 100 feet down the slope a second outcropping is present, with many loose rocks and boulders throughout the whole area. Soil is light and loamy. The slope has a west exposure. The stand of trees is fairly open, with several large elms, walnuts, and yellow oaks, and occasional hackberries, ailanthus and red haws. This area was included in a narrow strip of woodland fenced about 1940 as a runway connecting a hilltop pasture with a valley pasture where water was available at a time when both pastures were heavily grazed by horses and cattle. As a result of trampling, browsing and grazing by livestock, understory vegetation of this area presented a different aspect from that in most other parts of the woodland. Saplings of the dominant tree species and shrubs, notably dogwood, gooseberry and crabapple, were relatively scarce. Herbaceous vegetation, especially muhly grass, was conspicuous. By 1953 in the fifth growing season after livestock were removed, the area still contrasted with other parts of the woodland in sparseness of shrubby vegetation. Old stock trails were still discernible, and some sheet erosion and gullying had occurred. The effect of livestock in holding back woody undergrowth seemed to be an important factor in improving the habitat as the skinks were much scarcer in adjacent woodlands on either side that were similar in species composition, size, and numbers of the larger trees, but different in having much thicker underbrush. These adjacent woodlands were not entirely comparable, however, because they had more north-facing exposures. Reptile associates in the Skink Woods area include the brown skink, Sonoran skink, glass-snake, worm snake, ring-necked snake, blue-racer, garter snake, pilot blacksnake, copperhead and timber rattlesnake, but only the worm snake and ring-necked snake were abundant.