CoMi'TON — The Birds of Douglas Lake Region 173 

 THE BIRDS OF THE DOUGLAS LAKE REGION 



BY JAS. S. COMPTON. 



The Biological Station of the University of Michigan is lo- 

 cated on Douglas Lake in the western part of Cheyboygan 

 County, Michigan, in a district almost equidistant from the 

 Straits of Mackinac, and the Great Lakes, Huron and Michi- 

 gan. The data upon which this paper is based were gath- 

 ered by the writer while in residence at the Station during 

 the summers of 1913 and 1914. The session at the Station 

 like that of the university of which it is a part covers a period 

 of eight weeks beginning the last of June. The weather 

 conditions, then, are those of midsummer in the region of the 

 upper Great Lakes. 



The region about Douglas Lake has a remarkable geologi- 

 cal history, most of it at one time or another during the Gla- 

 cial Epoch having been moraines, outwash aprons, lake beach, 

 lake bottom, lake dune, or two or more of these different de- 

 posits, an outwash apron at one time furnishing the materials 

 to build a lake beach, and it a little later in turn the sand for 

 a dune.^ The soil is sandy ; much of it has little in it besides 

 well worn grains of quartz ; in some places especially on the 

 higher levels where least washing by wave action has taken 

 place there is much gravel and a little clay and loam. So 

 far as permanent human settlements are concerned most of 

 the region is still wilderness, the barren sand having little at- 

 traction for even the most land-hungry. Conditions of life 

 for man and beast and bird are decidedly primitive. 



A generation or less ago the land was heavily forested with 

 white and red pine, hemlock, spruce, hard maple, beech, birch, 

 white cedar, balsam, tamarack, swamp maple and black ash, 

 but now little of the original growth remains. In only one 

 place within a radius of three miles of the Station can the 

 primeval conifer-hardwood forest be seen untouched by forest 

 fire or the ax of the lumberman. This oasis is Fairy Island in 

 Douglas Lake, an exception to the rule because of its isolated 



^ Summary, of Surface Geology of Micliigau. Alfred C. Lane, 

 1908. 



