Vo 'i^6^ 111 ] Beyer, Allison, Kopman, Birds of Louisiana. 13 



heavily wooded river bottoms, in the mixed growths on the higher 

 banks of streams, and in those diversifications of the flatter pine 

 forests known as ' bay galls ' or ' bayheads,' which are merely slight 

 depressions, grown to the sweet bay (Magnolia virginiana), black 

 gum (Nyssa biflora), red maple, and various shrubs peculiar to 

 the region, such as, Cyrilla, Illicium (rose bay), and various erica- 

 ceous plants. One characteristic set of summer birds found in 

 such situations, especially towards the south and in the lower 

 growths, consists of the Wood Thrush, Parula and Hooded War- 

 blers, White-eyed and Red-eyed Vireos, and Green-crested and 

 Crested Flycatchers. Further north, from about the parallel of 

 31 degrees north, should be added the. Yellow-throated Vireo, 

 Worm-eating Warbler, and Louisiana Water-thrush. 



The pine flats of the southwest merge gradually into the prairie 

 section, which is sparingly pine-bearing almost to the coast. In 

 scarcely any particular is this prairie region similar to the fertile 

 alluvial region of the east. The change from its red and yellow 

 clay soil conformation, however, to the muddy lands of the Mis- 

 sissippi, is very gradual, country of indeterminate nature stretches 

 fifteen or twenty miles each side of the town of New Iberia. The 

 most conspicuous feature of summer bird life on the prairies is 

 the abundance of Mourning Doves, Nighthawks, Kingbirds, and 

 Meadowlarks. 



Along the coast, about the eastern edge of the prairie section, 

 are situated the 'Five Islands,' pronounced by geologists to be 

 without American homologues. They are hills in the marshy or 

 prairie-land region. They have proved to be scarcely less inter- 

 esting from faunistic and floristic standpoints than from a geolo- 

 gical point of view. In their avifauna, however, they have been 

 found less peculiar than might have been expected. The wealth 

 of their woodland in a somewhat thinly wooded area has attracted 

 large numbers of birds; but beyond this, no facts of particular 

 ecological importance have been observed, except that in migra- 

 tion these spots attract a rather larger variety of birds than are 

 found at corresponding times in the surrounding country. 



It should be noted further of the prairie section that its river 

 bottoms are fully as well wooded as those of any other section of 

 the State, and along the rivers and bayous, and about the lakes 



