A^2 Allison, Birds of West Baton Rouge Parish, La. foct' 



THE BIRDS OF WEST BATON ROUGE PARISH, 

 LOUISIANA. 



BY ANDREW ALLISON. 



A FAUNAL or floral list of any locality, based on observations 

 covering a limited space of time, is, after all, liable only to such 

 objections as may be urged against anything finite. Nothing is 

 complete ; therefore I need not apologize at too great length for 

 the small size of the list given in this article. The ground is suffi- 

 ciently well covered by the statement that my observations in 

 West Baton Rouge Parish extended over the period between 

 November i, 1902, and July i, 1903; comparing these results 

 with those obtained under similar conditions at New Orleans, 

 some differences of interest were easily discernible, and I now 

 present a synopsis of the notes written during the specified period. 



The Parish of West Baton Rouge lies on the right bank of the 

 Mississippi River, about eighty miles northwest of New Orleans, 

 in latitude between 30° and 31° north, longitude between 91° and 

 92° west. The surface is generally perfectly level, and the soil is 

 largely a black fertile alluvium ; where crevasses have more or 

 less recently occurred, a covering of silt, commonly known as river 

 sand, has been deposited ; and where this reaches its maximum 

 thickness, a slightly roUing character is given to the surface. 



The cultivation of sugar-cane has necessitated the clearing of 

 the forests for some distance back from the river, which, for most 

 of the length of the parish, runs close to the line of levees. In 

 some places, however, a flood plain has been formed outside of 

 the levee, varying in width up to a maximum of three miles ; this 

 formation is covered with a thick growth of willow {Salix lofigi- 

 folia) and cottonwood {Populus deltoides) ; and even where the plain 

 is but a very few years old, the growth, here of cottonwood, there 

 of willow, is very thick. In the older parts of the plain, honey 

 locust {Gleditsia triacanthos), pecan {^Hicoria pecan), deciduous 

 holly (^Ilex deddua), and some other species, are mingled with the 

 cottonwoods, and the poison ivy {Rhus radicans) clings to almost 

 every tree. The willows disappear as the ground rises. 



It would be tedious and useless to enumerate the herbs that 



