526 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



were seen 90 miles west of Tampa after a hurricane 

 sitting on a floating log (Packard, loc. cit.)- The 

 noddy is a mucli better swimmer than the sooty 

 tern. 



Dovekie Plautus alle 



A far northern species and the only representa- 

 tive of the family Alcidae ever known to have 

 reached the Gulf. In 1932, during a tremendous 

 southward influx of dovekies apparently unprece- 

 dented within the historic period (see Murphy 

 and Vogt, 1933, pp. 322-333), birds reached 

 Matecumbe Key, Florida, on December 3 and 9; 

 Matanzas Bay, Cuba, on November 9; and Santa 

 Maria del Rosario, 20 kilometers from Ha- 

 vana, on December 1 and 6. Since that year it 

 has been reported at least three times: one ob- 

 served at Key West in the winter of 1936-37 

 (Longstreet, 1937, p. 66); one collected at St. 

 Andrews Bay, Florida, December 7, 1939 (Steven- 

 son, 1950, p. 612); several seen and one taken at 

 Key West, December 10, 1950; and another cap- 

 tured and released by J. R. De Weese, at Dry 

 Tortugas in early December 1950. 



II. BIRDS OF THE COAST 



As one moves shoreward from the open Gulf, 

 the scene changes from one of wide vistas of 

 seemingly empty sea and sky to one with a bird 

 life of bewildering abundance and variety. In 5 

 minutes on the coast one can frequently see a 

 greater number of kinds of birds than is listed in 

 the whole pelagic category. In December 1950, 

 a 1-day bird count made within a circle 15 miles 

 in diameter, reaching back from the Gulf coast 

 at Cameron, Louisiana (Newman and party, 1951) 

 disclosed the presence of no less than 142 species. 

 Fully nine-tenths of the species of birds in eastern 

 North America have been recorded at one time 

 or another in the counties bordering the Gulf 

 coasts of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, 

 or Texas, and it is likely that all but a few of these 

 species have occurred at certain times and places 

 within a hundred yards of the surf. Except at 

 the tip of the Florida Peninsula, these counties all 

 lie within the Lower Austral Life-zone or its arid 

 division, the Lower Sonoran. As one continues 

 the circuit of the Gulf coast, however, one passes 

 into the Tropical Region and through two sharply 

 differentiated faunas, that of Mexico and that of 

 the West Indies. These places are so rich in birds 



of their own that the avifauna of the narrow 

 coastal strip extending back a few hundred yards 

 from the Gulf beach along its entire periphery very 

 probably exceeds the entire avifauna of the United 

 States in variety. 



Which of these birds are to be considered coastal 

 birds? As to their separation from the birds 

 of the open Gulf, a line of distinction has already 

 been laid down. The coastal birds may be said 

 to be those species that occur more frequently on 

 the shores of the mainland than on the open sea. 

 This definition works very well except as it ap- 

 plies to a quartet of water birds that are more 

 commonly encountered on the coastal islands of 

 the Gulf than on its mainland shores. The great 

 white heron, which many believe to be nothing 

 more than a color phase of Ardea herodias, is best 

 known as a bird of the Florida Keys; but, though 

 infrequently observed on the Florida Peninsula 

 itself, it has at least nested there. The man-o'- 

 war-bird, popularly thought of as a bird of the. 

 oceans, has its center of abundance in the Gulf at 

 roosting grounds on the islands near the coast; 

 but, though it could have been classed with the 

 offshore birds as here defined, it wanders often 

 enough to the edges of the mainland to qualify 

 as a borderline case. The oyster-catcher is so 

 wary of man that it now spends most of its time 

 on the inshore islands rather than the peripheral 

 shores; but it remains clearly a littoral species. 

 And the roseate tern, which has established a 

 breeding colony in the Dry Tortugas, is as infre- 

 quently reported on the coasts of the mainland 

 as some pelagics, but this is doubtless duo to its 

 small numbers, the difficulty in distinguishing it, 

 and its scattered distribution when not nesting. 



The problem of delimiting the coastal species 

 from the inland bird fauna is much more complex. 

 Such delimitation cannot be accomplished by 

 simply considering the occurrence of a given 

 species in a given place. As a starting point, we 

 may specify that to qualify as a true part of the 

 Gulf avifauna a coastal bird must be a species of 

 the intertidal zone. But just what is meant by 

 "a species of the intertidal zone?" If we inter- 

 pret it to mean an organism confined to the area 

 between the low-tide mark and the high-tide 

 mark, virtually no species in this highly mobile 

 class of animals with which we are dealing fits 

 the definition. If on the other hand, we interpret 

 it as any organism present at times in the inter- 



