226 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY I3TH ANNUAL REPORT 



supposed to range only from the Suwannee and St. Mary's Rivers 

 to DeSoto County, but other forms differing very Httle from it 

 range northeastward to the Savannah River in Georgia and the 

 Warrior and Tombigbee in Alabama ; and there are many other 

 species of Gcomys and related genera west of the Mississippi 

 River. Like some of its western relatives, it performs an impor- 

 tant service in stirring up the soil, as indicated in the chapter on 

 soils; but unlike some others, it does very little damage to crops.* 



The manatee or sea-cow ( Trichechus Manatus or Manatus 

 Aiiiericaiius), was doubtless formerly common on our coasts, but 

 being practically defenseless it has been hunted for sport or for 

 curiosity until it is nearly extinct. Whales are occasionally 

 stranded on our shores. 



Among extinct mammals may be mentioned the elephant, mas- 

 todon, bison, camel, rhinoceros, tapir, sloth, armadillo, and some 

 relatives of the horse, all of which. roamed over what is now the 

 phosphate country in Pliocene or Pleistocene time, which was only 

 yesterday geologically speaking. 



Birds. The study of birds is more popular with amateurs than 

 is that of mammals, and it is possible to give some rather detailed 

 information about them, culled mostly from Frank M. Chapman's 

 Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America. f It appears from 

 that that the number of species (not counting subspecies) that can 

 be seen in central Florida at one season or another is between 200 

 and 250, or a little more than half of all that are known in eastern 



*The distribution of the southeastern salamanders, as indicated by their 

 ^'hills," was discussed in Science for January 19, 1912; but up to the present 

 time, nine years later, the writer has never seen one of the animals. The 

 soil-making activities of one of the Great Plains species were described by 

 £rnest Thompson Seton in the Century Magazine for June, 1904. 



tThere is more than one edition, but the latest seen by the writer was copy- 

 righted in 1912, and is a duodecimo with xxix-|- 530 pages, a double-page 

 colored "life-zone" map of North America, a double-page color chart, 24 

 plates (some of them colored), and 136 text-figures. Toward the end there 

 is a bibliography arranged by states, containing several references to the area 

 under consideration. 



