CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 



ECOLOGY OF THE LOUISIANA MUSKRAT LANDS 



Because of the fact that the Louisiana muskrat crop 

 is of immense value to the state and nation, and as 

 enterprises in the farming and ranching of muskrats 

 are being launched in Louisiana, as well as in other states 

 of the Union, any information of a scientific nature on the 

 relation of muskrats, or the other fur animals, to their nat- 

 ural surroundings will be of great value to these commercial 

 enterprises. 



Physiography of Louisiana Wet Lands 



The Mississippi alluvial plain extends southward 

 along the eastern border of Louisiana in a broad belt 

 about four hundred miles in length and averaging about 

 fifty miles in width, its lower portion swinging out in the 

 gulf toward the southeast, where it terminates in the 

 present delta of the Mississippi river. On the east side 

 in the state of Mississippi and in the Florida parishes of 

 Louisiana, and on the west side in Louisiana, the more 

 modern alluvial lands are bordered by the loessal or bluff 

 formation. These in turn are bordered on the east and 

 west by the various manifestations of the belted coastal 

 plain, which is young along the coast and grades inland 

 to a maturely dissected peneplain. Extending diagonally 

 across the state from its northwest corner, and joining 

 the Mississippi alluvial plain midway between the Ar- 

 kansas line and the Gulf, is the broad valley, that of the 

 Ouachita river. East of Alexandria, the Ouachita valley 

 merges with that of Mississippi to form an immense flood 

 plain. 



Below the mouth of the Red river, the Mississippi has 

 no tributaries of any importance, but in the broad fan- 

 shaped alluvial plain which terminates in the present 

 delta there are numerous important outlets. These, ex- 

 cept the Atchafalaya and the present passes at the mouth 

 of the Mississippi have now been dammed by the levee 



