THE AUK: 



A (QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF 



ORNITHOLOGY. 

 VOL. IX. July, 1892. No. 3. 



NOTES ON THE TTRDS OF THE CALOOSAHATCHIE 

 REGION OF FLORIDA. 



BY W. E. D, SCOTT. 



Om the 3ist of November, 1S91, the writer began to make a 

 series of observations on the bird fauna of the region which is in 

 the vicinity of the Caloosahatchie River, Florida, and this work 

 was continued until April 26, the whole period extending over 

 some five months. Tiie collections made were obtained on both 

 sides of the river and from ten to twenty miles in either direction. 

 In an east and west course work was done from Punta Rassa to 

 and past Lake Flirt, or nearly half way across the peninsula. 

 The material obtained aggregated about twelve hundred birds, 

 so that a fair representation of the forms was acquired, in good 

 series. 



The central point, selected as a base to work from, was the 



town of Fort Myers in Lee County, which is distant from the 



Gulf some twenty miles, and from Lake Flirt about forty-five 



miles, 'rhe river, which formed the line worked over from Punta 



Rassa to Lake Flirt, is for its first twenty or twenty-five miles 



really an arm of tlie Gulf, being salt for a great part of the year 



and always subject to tide influence, though the rise and fall is 



inconsiderable. For this twenty-five miles it is a broad stream, 



rarely less than one and often more than two miles in width, and 



in the channel it ranges from five to fifteen feet in depth. At 



Punta Rassa and for the tlistance just indicated, from that place 



going up the river, there is more or less mangrove along the 



immediate edge of the water. 

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