THE AUK: 



A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF 

 ORNITHOLOGY. 



Vol. xxiii. January, 1906. No. 1. 



LIST OF THE BIRDS OF LOUISIANA. 



BY GEO. E. BEYER, ANDREW ALLISON, AND HENRY H. KOPMAN. 



Part I. — Preliminary Sketch. 



The most striking feature of the well known topographical and 

 corresponding biotic variety in Louisiana is the absolute contrast 

 between the biota of the fertile and extended delta plain of the 

 Mississippi in the southeastern part of the State and the biota of 

 every type of Louisiana country to the west and north and north- 

 west, except the remaining portion of the general flood plain of 

 the Mississippi lying within the borders of Louisiana. 



In the keenness of this distinction should be founded every 

 attempt to understand the distribution of avian as well as all 

 other life in this decidedly remarkable State; for since the low 

 southeastern section referred to as the delta plain touches almost 

 every other topographic type in Louisiana, great value is given to 

 a study of life along the line of divergence between the extreme 

 lowland in the southeast and all the slightly or much more elevated 

 country of different soil conformations of Louisiana. The ecologi- 

 cal problems here involved are scarcely to be paralleled elsewhere. 



A view of the Louisiana avifauna might properly be focused in 

 the southeastern part of the State merely in recognition of the 

 uncommon difference between bird life as found in that section 

 and as found in all other parts of the United States. The im- 

 mense and, in some ways, peculiar development of aquatic bird 

 life in southeast Louisiana especially, and a lesser, but corre- 



