484 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



land is known as Presiiue Isle, or the Peninsula, while the enclosed 

 water is Presque Isle or Erie Bay — the former name in each case being 

 a souvenir of the French occupation of this region. 



The mean level of Lake Erie is five hundred and seventy-three feet 

 above tide. Extending along the lake front is an almost level alluvial 

 strip some two or three miles in width, which is known as the lake 

 shore plain. It lies at an elevation above the lake of from one hundred 

 to one hundred and sixty feet, most of which difference in level is rep- 

 resented by a steep bluff rising just back of the beach of the lake. The 

 lake shore plain has a sandy soil, and is regarded as the best farming 

 land in the county, hence its woodland has almost disappeared. It is 

 in this cleared area, most of which is under cultivation, or given over 

 to grazing, that such birds as are partial to open country find their most 

 congenial haunts. Scattered here and there, and particularly on the 

 slopes of the high ridge that limits the plain on the south, there yet 

 remain some groves of hardwood timber, consisting largely of oak 

 {Qiicrci/s, several species), chestnut (^Casfa/iea dentata'), walnut 

 {^Jiiglans nigra), butternut (Jiiglai/s ci/wrca), beech (^Fagits afropii- 

 nicea), wild cherry (^Prumts serotiua'), maple {Acer nibrum),\\\QVQxy 

 {Hitoria spp.), elm (^Uhmis Ai/icrica/ia) , and cucumber-tree {Mag- 

 ttolia acuminata) , and a great deal of second-growth poplar {^Populus 

 sp.). In many places the bluff facing the lake shore is covered with 

 a rich woods composed largely of hemlock ( Tsi/ga Caiiaiic/isis), which 

 growth often encroaches upon the adjacent level land, and may have 

 originally covered much more of this area. In these woods are found 

 several species of birds which have not been detected at all upon the 

 Peninsula. A belt of swampy land about three-fourths of a mile wide 

 formerly extended along the lake shore plain from the Ohio line to a 

 point about twelve miles east of Erie. Even now, with drainage 

 systems on every farm, there are still left considerable areas of marshy 

 ground, with occasional scattered ponds, where ducks and other water- 

 fowl sometimes alight, and rails and snipe are found in their season, 

 and, indeed, in early times this strip was famous ground for these kinds 

 of game birds. 



South of the lake shore plain the country is much more heavily 

 wooded, and doubtless the bird-life is correspondingly affected, but a 

 discussion of this question does not come within the limits of the 

 present paper. The ridge overlooking the plain is some four or five 

 hundred feet above the level of the lake, and beyond this the land is of 



