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FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



duck marshes of southern Louisiana, adjoining the 

 Gulf, hunting pressure often causes surprising 

 numbers of dabbling or pond ducks to seek an 

 unaccustomed refuge beyond the surf. 



The more one analyzes the avifauna of the 

 coastal strip, the more futile it seems to try to 

 set up an objective criterion to separate Gulf 

 birds from non-Gulf birds. But it would be just 

 as futile, even if space permitted, to attempt a 

 complete resume of all the birds occurring on the 

 coast. The Gulf of Mexico simply does not provide 

 a convenient natural bond for tying together 

 major elements of the diverse avifaunas of the 

 West Indies, the United States, and Mexico. 

 Though many of the birds of the coast are closely 

 linked to the Gulf ecologically, their practical 

 associations from a reference standpoint are 

 with the birds of the mainland, and information 

 concerning their status is best sought in works 

 dealing with the birds of the States and counties 

 bordering the Gulf. Works of this nature, either 

 published or in the course of publication, are 

 listed in the section "Literature Cited," since they 

 constitute the major sources from which material 

 for this chapter has been drawn. 



Since the present list of coastal birds is not 

 offered as an exhaustive reference, it is not too 

 critical a matter just how much it includes. We 

 would formally define coastal species as those that 

 characteristically occur over the inshore waters 

 within sight of the mainland and over that part 

 of the mainland itself washed by tides. The 

 term "characteristically," however, permits a 

 wide latitude of interpretation and in applying it, 

 we do not pretend to have exercised strict con- 

 sistency. Many readers will doubtless think of 

 birds they would consider more deserving of a 

 place in the account than some species we have 

 admitted. All we have tried to do is to give a 

 comprehensive list of those birds that are definitely 

 commoner in salt water than elsewhere, together 

 with a somewhat arbitrary sampling of other 

 species occurring on the coast but not primarily 

 birds of the littoral. 



Even on this selective basis, the coastal avifauna 

 is a large one, amounting to 125 species. The 

 relationships of these birds with the Gulf have 

 many aspects — their relative abundance on the 

 different coasts, their relative abundance at dif- 

 ferent seasons, their status as breeders or visitants, 

 their degree of association with salt water. Since, 



over the vast geographical extent of the Gulf, the 

 seasons of many species vary from place to place, 

 the complete status of a coastal bird is often a 

 very complicated matter. In order to convey as 

 much information as possible in the smallest space, 

 we have presented the summary of coastal species 

 io telegraphic form, arranged under three headings. 

 The subdivisions are (1) Breeding Bu-ds, (2) 

 Regular Visitants, and (3) Species Not of Regular 

 Annual Occurrence. If a species is present some- 

 where on the Gulf every year, it is deemed of 

 regular annual occurrence. Records for 4 out of 

 the past 10 years are regarded as good presumptive 

 evidence of such yearly presence. 



The ranges, for the most part, have been 

 expressed in terms of their extent counterclockwise 

 around the Gulf perimeter, starting with Cuba or 

 Florida, at the open eud of the Gulf. The phrase 

 "Florida to Texas," for example, is meant to 

 imply that the species concerned is represented 

 on the coasts of both Florida and Texas, as well 

 as on the coast in between. As an indication of 

 the extent to which the various species frequent 

 the coast, we have employed before the name of 

 each, one, two, or three asterisks. Three asterisks 

 (***) denote a species that is seldom seen away 

 from the coast; two asterisks (**), a species that 

 is not infrequently found inland, but which is 

 consistently equally common, or more common, 

 on the coast; one asterisk (*), a species that is 

 usually more frequent inland, but which for brief 

 periods may be equally common on the coast. 

 Our decisions in this matter have been based 

 mainly upon the distribution of these birds in the 

 States, Territories, and Provinces bordering on 

 the Gulf, with recourse to a broader ecological 

 viewpoint only in the case of those rare visitants 

 that do not otherwise provide a basis of com- 

 parison. The resulting classification is a very 

 rough one and one resting to some extent on 

 personal opinion, since all the difficulties en- 

 countered in defining a coastal category are 

 compounded when one attempts to divide that 

 category into parts. 



The brief statements as to the relative abun- 

 dance of the diflFerent species along the different 

 sections of the coast, of course, merely reflect the 

 incidence of the currently available records and 

 not necessarily the true incidence of the birds 

 themselves. Some sections of the Gulf coast 



