460 



NATURALIST'S GUIDE TO THE AMERICAS 



Evermann, Barton W. 1898 A report 

 on investigations by the U. S. Fish 

 Commission in Mississippi, Louisiana 

 and Texas in 1897. Report of the 

 Commissioner of Fisheries. 



Gray, Asa. Manual of Botany. 



Horniday, W. T. 1913 Our vanishing 

 wild life. New York Zoological 

 Society. 



Jordan, D. S., and Evermann, Barton W. 

 1896 The fishes of North and Middle 

 America. U. S. National Museum, 

 Bull. 47, Vol. 1. 



Jordan, D. S. 1899 Manual of the 

 vertebrate animals. 



Lowe, E. N. 1913 Forest conditions in 

 Mississippi. Mississippi State Geo- 

 logical Survey, Bull. 11. 



Lowe, E. N. 1921 Plants of Missis- 

 sippi. Mississippi State Geological 

 Survey, Bull. 17. 



Townsend, C. H. 1919 Guide to the 

 New York Aquarium. New York 

 Zoological Society. 



Small, J. K. Flora of the Southeastern 

 United States. 



U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 Weather Bureau. Climatological data 

 of the United States. 



Wailes, B. L. C. 1854 Report on the 

 Agriculture and Geology of Mississippi, 

 embracing a sketch of the Social and 

 Natural History of the State. 



Baird, S. F. and Girard, C. 1853 Cata- 

 logue of North American Reptiles in 

 the Museum of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution, Publication 49. 



Hilgard, Eug. W. 1860 Report on the 

 Geology and Agriculture of the State 

 of Mississippi. 



11. LOUISIANA 



BY G. W. GOLDSMITH, LENTHALL WYMAN 

 AND H. H. KOPMAN 



I. GENERAL FEATURES AND ORIGINAL 

 BIOTA 



1. Physiographic regions (L. W.) 



While the surface of the state does not 

 vary greatly in elevation, the highest 

 level being about 400 ft., there are great 

 differences in soil, general character, 

 and vegetation. The main divisions are : 

 (a) wooded uplands, partly pine, partly 

 hardwood and partly mixed; (6) wooded 

 alluvial bottoms and heavy swamps 

 along large rivers and also wooded 

 coastal plain, entirely cypress and hard- 

 wood; (c) level or slightly rolling prairies; 

 (d) coastal and usually tidal flats and 



marshes; (e] coastal islands. Under (a) 

 the most strongly marked physio- 

 graphic types are the predominantly 

 pine-bearing lands (longleaf pine hills 

 and pine flats), and the richly wooded 

 but well drained bottoms of small 

 rivers in such regions. Under (6) the 

 strongest types are the slack water 

 cypress and hardwood sloughs in large 

 river basins above tide level, connecting 

 with the main streams only in times of 

 high water or overflow; and the usually 

 submerged and far-spreading tide-level 

 swamps of cypress and hardwood about 

 the so-called lakes of the coastal region. 

 In (d), coastal flats and marshes, the 

 amount of muck, character of vegeta- 

 tion, and degree of salinity of water 

 varies considerably; the surface is 

 greatly diversified by bayous, shallow 

 bays, and lakes. 



Highly interesting biotic conditions 

 are presented at the various lines of 

 blending or division of the several 

 physiographic types of the state. Espe- 

 cially notable are the changes from 

 flatwoods or bottomwoods of both small 

 and large rivers to the pine or mixed 

 pine and hardwood hill type; from pine 

 flats to prairies; from pine flats to 

 coastal marshes; from wooded regions 

 of the coastal plains to coastal marshes 

 and from hardwood regions of the coastal 

 plains to pine flats. In other cases the 

 changes are usually more gradual. 



2. Environmental types 



The types of environment, while 

 varying strongly from a physiographic 

 standpoint, are all in a single geographic 

 division: the austroriparian life zone. 

 The principal animal communities pecu- 

 liar to the several physiographic divi- 

 sions are as follows : 



a. Upland. Plants (L. W.): The up- 

 lands are divisible into two distinct 

 forest types, namely, shortleaf pine 

 hills and longleaf pine hills. The short- 

 leaf pine hills, lying in the northwestern 

 part of the state, have fertile sandy loam 

 soils with good drainage. The domi- 

 nant tree is shortleaf pine (Pinus echi- 

 nala) which occurs in pure stands on the 



