Summer Birds Near Lake Caddo 167 



From the onuthological point of view Texas is still 

 virgin ter^itor3^ Certain regions, snch as the Waco dis- 

 trict, have been worked up and lists published, yet some 

 of these lists, coming from near the same localities, do 

 not always agree as to the abundaaice — or even the 

 species — of birds in the region. This divergence is due 

 largely to yearly variations in migratory movements as 

 dependent upon climatic conditions, and to the very defi- 

 nite restriction of paths of migration due to topographic 

 conditions — a restriction drawn much more closely in 

 Texas than in any other region I have seen — as I hope 

 to show in a later paper. By far the largest portion of 

 the state is still untouched in so far as detailed avifaunal 

 studies are concerned, and until these studies are made, 

 nothing will be definitely known as to the exact limit of 

 the ranges of the various species found within this great 

 state. To say that a species " occurs in Texas " is about 

 as vague and valueless as to say another '' occurs in 

 Europe." In order to help further the work already done 

 along the lines of investigation of specific regions, the 

 present writer has undertaken avifaunal studies in vari- 

 ous parts of the state, the first of which is offered here- 

 with. 



In all the ornithological literature which the writer 

 has examined, there has been found not one reference to 

 Lake Caddo. This lake, one of the largest (if not the 

 largest) in the south, is, roughly speaking, wish1)one 

 shaped, the neck and shoulder of the northern wing lying 

 in Louisiana, the whole of the southern wing and the tip of 

 the northern wing in Texas. It is with this southern 

 wing, some 20 miles in length, separating Marion and 

 Harrison counties, that this paper deals. So far as the 

 writer knows, there is no map published of the region 

 under discussion that even approaches accuracy. To give 

 future workers some idea of the regions investigated by 

 the writer, the accompanying sketch map is offered. Be 

 it understood, however, that the actual conditions are 

 far more complicated than the map seems to indicate I 



Lake Caddo lies in a shallow basin, hemmed in by an 



