GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA 223 



WILD ANIMALS, OR FAUNA 



No description of central Florida would be complete without 

 some account of the native fauna, but the subject is difficult to 

 treat satisfactorily in a few pages, especially for one who makes 

 no pretension to being a zoologist. Although an expert ornithol- 

 ogist, herpetologist, ichthyologist, entomologist or conchologist 

 might be able after careful examination of literature and speci- 

 mens, or after spending a few months in the area, to prepare a 

 fairly complete list of the animals of his particular group occur- 

 ring in central Florida, there is hardly any one person in these 

 days of specialization who is a good authority on all groups of 

 animals. Furthermore, even if we knew exactly what species oc- 

 curred in the area as a whole, existing literature and collections 

 would be quite inadequate to show just which ones belonged in any 

 one of the ten regions, for most animals do not stay in one place 

 to be counted and mapped like trees, and some of the rarer or less 

 conspicuous ones may be seen in any one region by competent ob- 

 servers only at long intervals. And finally, even if it was pos- 

 sible to get absolutely complete lists for each region, they would 

 mean little to the layman, and those for neighboring regions might 

 be very much alike in the absence of data on relative abundance, 

 such as have been given in the foregoing pages for the commoner 

 plants. 



Very few botanists or zoologists as yet seem to appreciate the 

 importance of studying wild plants and animals quantitatively 

 after the manner of a census, and it is of course more difficult with 

 animals than with plants, on account of the impossibility of count- 

 ing those which travel rapidly or whose safety depends on con- 

 cealment. And civilization increases the difficulty, for even in 

 such a thinly settled area as ours the more conspicuous animals, 

 such as bears, deer, alligators, wild turkeys, egrets and paroquets, 

 have been hunted almost to the point of extermination, for their 

 meat, hides, or plumage, or merely for "sport."* Birds are 



*Among the very few quantitative studies of our animals that have been 

 made the second and last annual report of E. Z. Jones, Game and Fish Com- 

 missioner of Florida, published in the spring of 191 5, deserves special men- 

 tion. It contains a table giving the estimated number of bears, deer, wild- 

 cats, coons, opossums, otters, skunks, squirrels, quail, wild turkeys, ducks, 

 and cranes in each county ; and although some of the figures may be very 

 inaccurate, it is certainly a step in the right direction. 



