Biological Papers. 211 



NOTES ON THE KANSAS BIRD LIST. 



By D. E. Lantz, Washington, D. C. 



^ORTH AMERICAN ornitholgy has made considerable ad- 

 -^^ vancement in recent years, but Kansas observers have not 

 kept up with the general progress. In spite of the recent publica- 

 tion in the Transactions of the Academy of Science of two lists of 

 the birds of the state, we have at present no state list that properly 

 represents the actual bird fauna of Kansas. 



The geographical position of Kansas makes its fauna of peculiar 

 interest. It contains the division between two life zones — the 

 Upper and Lower Austral ; and since its western part is in the 

 semiarid plains, we have representatives of four faunal areas within 

 her borders. The AUeghanian fauna is the most important, being 

 dominant over approximately the eastern two-thirds of the state, 

 except an irregular strip on the south, which belongs to the Caro- 

 linian. The western third of the state is principally Upper So- 

 noran, but in the portion from the Arkansas valley southward the 

 Lower Sonoran forms are dominant. However, these faunal areas 

 are not well defined for the various species of birds, and the distri- 

 bution of many of them in Kansas is practically unknown. Many 

 common Eastern birds are replaced in the West by well-marked 

 races, or subspecies, which belong to the plains or plateau faunas. 

 In many of these cases Kansas has representatives of both forms, 

 one not hitherto reported ; in others, of but one, with the wrong 

 form now credited to the state. Besides, the Southern fauna — the 

 Lower Austral forms that come into the state — have surely not all 

 been reported. In these respects our Kansas bird list is far from 

 being perfect. 



In regard to nomenclature, our list has not been kept "up to 

 date." When, in 1897, I presented to the Academy a "Review of 

 Kansas Ornithologj^" the attempt was to show the historical side 

 of the work already done by observers in the state. Unfortunately 

 I overlooked the eighth supplement to the A. O. U. Check-list, and 

 the list I then published contained eleven bird names that had be- 

 come obsolete. When, four years later. Doctor Snow's "Catalogue 

 of Kansas Birds" was published, two additional supplements to the 

 A. O.U. list had appeared, but the nomenclature of the "Twentieth 

 Century Catalogue" contained none of the changes made by the A. 

 O. U. committee in either the eighth, ninth or tenth supplements. 



