VII. 



THE AVIFAUNA OF LOUISIANA. 



GEO. E. BEYER. 



(Communicated March 3, 1899). 



Although the natural history of the birds of North Amer- 

 ica in general, as well as that of several of the individual 

 states of our Union, has been well worked up time and again, 

 no effort, so far as I have been able to ascertain, has 

 been made to define the extent and distribution of feathered 

 life within the limits of Louisiana, almost all material iu or- 

 nithology pertaining to the state having been incorporated 

 with other and more general works on the subject. 



We find the earliest account of the bird-fauna of Louisiana 

 in Le Page du Pratz's "Histoire de la Louisiane," published 

 in Paris in 1758. This early historian of our state devotes a 

 part of his second volume to an account of the plant and ani- 

 mal life as it appeared to him, an untutored naturalist. One 

 chapter only treats, in a rather crude but quaint way, of the 

 birds. His descriptions, of course, are not only faulty, and 

 in many ways exaggerated, but his list falls far short of the 

 number of species known to us at the present day. 



Le Page only mentions and describes about 36 species, 

 which he also endeavpred to represent by illustrations. It 

 was well that he had the forethought to furnish these illus- 

 trations with the names of the birds they were intended to 

 represent. I am sure that the Parisians of the time must have 

 been strongly impressed with the wonderful grotesqueness of 

 the birds of Louisiana. 



Notwithstanding the shortcomings of Le Page, we must 

 certainly give him the credit of being, even up to this day, 

 the only naturalist who has confined himself strictly to Louisi- 

 ana in the treatment of his subject. 



