Aktiole IX. — A yreliyninary Report on the Animals of the 

 Mississippi Bottoms near Quincy, Illinois, in August, 1888. 

 Part I. By H. Garman. 



THE LOCALITY. 



The peculiar features of the waters examined while with 

 the Fish Commission at Quincy, in August, 1888, are reflected 

 in the character of the collections taken from them. The 

 locality is not one which would be selected by the naturalist 

 as likely to yield a great variety of species. The waters are 

 too much alike and are too much at the mercy of the Missis- 

 sippi River for that. It is a locality, however, that is eminently 

 characteristic of the Mississippi Valley, and one that is calcu- 

 lated to yield a fauna equally characteristic of certain influ- 

 ences which the great stream exerts upon its denizens. 



The flood-ground of the Mississippi River at Quinc}' will 

 average six miles in width from bluff to bluff and extends very 

 nearly north and south. The river reaches the bluff on the 

 Missouri side at the village of LaGrange, nine miles northwest 

 of Quincy. From LaGrange it flows southeast in a direct course 

 to the bluffs upon which Quincy stands. As this part of the 

 river is but little more than a mile in width, it will be seen 

 that extensive bottom-lands must lie on both sides of it between 

 LaGrange and Quincy. On the Missouri side these bottoms 

 form an extended and continuous body of land, — all wooded 

 except the upper part, which is known as Lone Tree Prairie. 



ft is to the forest bottom-lands on the Illinois side north- 

 west of Quincy that we wish to call especial attention, since it 

 was upon them that most of our work with the Fish Commis- 

 sion was done. Unlike the Lone Tree Prairie region, they are 

 cut up by channels into numerous separate bodies of land, 

 upon some of which the water rises in spring, and leaves, as it 

 subsi les, numbers of lakes and ponds, some permanent, others 

 transient. Opposite LaGrange some of these tracts are per- 



