THE OSPREY. 



An Illustrated Magazine of Popular Ornithology. 



Published |VlonthIv. 



Volume v. 



SEPTEMBER, 1901. 



NUMBBH 9. 



Original and Selected Articles. 



SOME BIRDS OF THE KISSIMMEE VALLEY, FLORIDA. 

 By William Palmer, Washington, D. C. 



Observations of the following birds were 

 made during a month spent in Florida, in Feb- 

 ruary and March. 1895, in company with my 

 friends, Mr. Robert Ridgway and Mr. K. J. 

 Brown. We had intended to take a steamer 

 down the Kissimmee River, but were compelled 

 to hire a sailboat t" go as far as the middle of 

 Lake Kissimmee from which we footed it some 

 twenty-five miles further south, our baggage 

 g< >i ml;- <>ii a wagon. < hi r destination wast (range 

 Hammock "ii the Kissimmee River a few mill - 

 above Fort Kissimmee. Here we camped for 

 22 days on the place of Mr. .1. W. Driggs, a 

 former Alligator hunter who at one Lime had 

 collected specimens of birds. 



Sky, water, prairie, pines, sand, palmettoes, 

 flatness, are common in this region; all else are 

 occasional anil scarce and simply serve to make 

 a slight change in the landscape. We were un- 

 fortunate as to the time of our trip for the two 

 great frosts of that year occurring jusl previous 

 to our visit had largely destroyed the tender 

 vegetation and especially the flowers and 

 oranges, and had undoubtedly affected the bird- 

 life. 



The word "Hammock' is used in the Kissim- 

 mee Valley to designate two very dissimilar 

 places. The ordinary use is intended for those 

 places of irregular size and shape which are 

 merely of a little hit; her elevation than the level 

 of tlie surrounding country and densely coven d 

 with a growth of plants, principally live oaks 

 and bushes. The clearing of these places and 

 the planting of orange and other fruit trees 



together with the building of a sometimes s ■■ 



what indifferent house, have resulted in the 

 nearest approach to civilization that the country 

 affords. The other kind of Hammock has had 

 an entirely different origin and calls for a more 

 extended notice, especially as they are the homes 

 of various species of birds not usually found in 

 the other. 



On the prairies, in the pine woods, along the 

 edges of the swamps ami never on the large 

 "Hammocks* already described, are many cir- 

 cular depressions of varying depths and diame- 

 ters, usually not more than ten feet deep, and 



from thirty feet to a quarter of a mile in extent. 

 The most numerous are perhaps a hundred feet 

 or so across. Sometimes these occur singlyj 

 then again several exist close together rarelv; 

 two or three unite or nearly join, in fact: they 

 occur entirely at random, but never in the 

 swamps as far as I know, and not usually in the 

 pine woods. I often speculated as to the origin 

 of these depress C.is. but with no result until I 

 he ame aware of the character of the substrata. 

 The explanations I have to offer are based on 

 my experiences, and may or may not be correct; 

 at any rate they seem to tit ihe case. The loose 

 surface sand of the Kissimmee Valley region, 

 which is almost its only soil, is from two to six 

 01 eight feet deep and rests on a comparatively 

 thin stratum of a soft brown sandy clay "rock"', 

 a rock only in name, but designated so in the 

 country. In places bog iron exists on the sur- 

 face of this so-called rock which is thus liard- 

 , ened, ami where it is exposed on the surface it 

 also becomes hardened by the weather. The 

 accumulated rains, often abundant and cover- 

 ing miles, soften this layer of clay rock and 

 percolate through in many places, causing 

 small channels through which the fine sand of 

 the surface is carried, resulting in surface de- 

 pressions or sinks varying in size according to 

 tin- character of the channel in the clay. These 

 sinks are always full of water during the rainy 

 season, but are often dry or contain but little 

 water in the winter. The second class of 'Ham- 

 mocks' are formed in the following way from 

 these "sinks'. Particles of vegetable matter 

 are carried to the centers and choke up the chan- 

 nels, atiil eventually form slight mounds in 

 which seeds of various trees germinate and grow 

 during some favorable season. Thus we find 

 depressions containing varying- depths of water 

 and containing one or more cypress trees always 

 in or about the center with deeper water sur- 

 rounding them. As the central mound of such 

 depressions increases in size and height, gum 

 trees gradually take the place of the cypress to 

 the exclusion of all other trees. But in some, 

 especially the larger sinks witli a larger and 

 higher central mound, many species of trees, 



