THE AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES OF 
DICKINSON COUNTY, IOWA 
By Frank N. BLANCHARD 
Department of Zoology, University of Michigan 
The period from June 22 to July 31, 1920, was spent by the 
writer at the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory on Lake Okoboji in 
Dickinson County, northwestern Iowa, for the purpose of col- 
lecting a representative series for the Museum of Zoology of 
the University of Michigan. Collecting was done in the town- 
ships of Lakeville, Spirit Lake, Center Grove, Okoboji, and 
Diamond Lake. 
For their many kindnesses throughout his study, the writer 
wishes to express his deep appreciation to Professor Robert B. 
Wylie, Director of the Lakeside Laboratory, and to Professor 
Frank A. Stromsten of the Department of Zoology of the Uni- 
versity of Iowa. 
The region is one of terminal moraine topography, dating 
from the last, or Wisconsin, ice sheet. The central portion of 
the county is the lake region of Iowa. Here are the three 
large lakes, East and West Okoboji and Spirit Lakes, besides 
many smaller ones of all sizes. West of the lakes, and flowing 
in general from north to south, lies the Little Sioux River, a 
tributary of the Missouri. The steeper shores of the lakes and 
of the Little Sioux are generally covered with trees, sometimes 
pure stands of bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa), at other times 
bur oak accompanied by basswood, ash and elm, but in all other 
places a natural growth of trees is lacking. Undrained depres- 
sions, or sloughs, of all sizes are common everywhere, but their 
number is being fast diminished by the digging of ditches and 
the placing of tile drains. Nearly all of the land is either un- 
der cultivation or devoted to pasturage, but occasional fields of 
unaltered prairie and natural woodland still remain. Their 
number and area are however so small that vertebrate forms 
dependent upon natural conditions for their existence have been 
Contributions from the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, No. 50 
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