NO. 2 AVIFAUNA OF PLEISTOCENE IN FLORIDA WETMORE 3 



Two bed or stratum dates back to the early part of the Pleistocene, 

 probably to the Aftonian period. In this he seems to be upheld by 

 Dr. Wythe Cooke.' Dr. G. G. Simpson " considers it more probable 

 that these deposits are of late Pleistocene age than that they date from 

 the earlier part of that period. Doctor Simpson further concludes that 

 the faunas from the Number Two bed of the east coast, from Saber- 

 tooth Cave, and from the Seminole area " represent a single phase of 

 geologic time." 



The writer cites these diverse opinions here without attempt to ofifer 

 evidence from the bird material in favor of either one. 



DISCUSSION OF THE AVIFAUNA 



The five principal localities here considered with their fossils may 

 be now treated briefly, but before taking these up in detail it is of 

 interest to note that though grebes, cormorants, herons, ducks and 

 geese, jabirus and other water loving birds are represented among the 

 birds of these 'deposits, there have been found as yet no sandpipers, 

 plovers, or other shorebirds, nor any terns or gulls (Lanis vcro of 

 Shufeldt being the yellow-crowned night heron). The lack of gulls is 

 of interest particularly since gulls are absent also from the Pleistocene 

 of California, where only one bone of a gull has been identified in 

 several hundred thousand specimens examined.^ 



In the present studies there have been identified 65 forms of birds 

 from the Pleistocene of Florida. Of these three are fossil species of 

 the Pleistocene, two of them, a teal, Querquedula Horidana, and a 

 turkey, Melcagris fridcus, being known only from Florida, while the 

 third, Teratornis merriami, was described originally from the deposits 

 of Rancho La Brea in California. 



There are nine forms that liave not been reported from modern 

 Florida. Among these is a shearwater, Puffiiius piiffiiius, a pelagic 

 species of wide range in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea 

 that comes here in all probability merely as a casual straggler. The 

 trumpeter swan, Cygnus bitcciuator, now nearly extinct, bred formerly 

 in the interior of the continent, ranging south in migration to Texas. 

 The whooping crane, Grus ainericana, a breeding form of the interior 

 of North America, now nearly extinct, has been reported uncertainly 

 from Florida. A small gray crane may be the Cuban bird or the little 

 brown crane of western North America. The California vulture. 



' Amer. Journ. Sci., vol. 12, 1926, pp. 449-452. 



" Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 54, February 19, 1929, p. 572. 



^ See Miller, Loye. Condor, 1924, pp. 173-174, and 1930, p. 117. 



