2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



her knowledge of the country and her contacts with local collectors 

 were especially helpful. 



THE FISH-HATCHERY SITE 

 During the summer of 1931, while the United States Bureau of 

 Fisheries was engaged in preparing the land for a new fish hatchery 

 at a place on Cane River Lake about a mile south of the town of 

 Natchitoches, an ancient Indian burial ground was accidentally dis- 

 covered. This body of water, formerly a bend of Red River, was cut 



Fig. 



-Sketch map of burial site on fish hatchery grounds. 



off in 1832 and is now a crescent-shaped lake bending sharply toward 

 the east. On the south side its banks rise rather steeply for about 

 25 feet and then form a flat level plain, which has been the scene of 

 past overflows. The site chosen for the fish ponds of the new hatchery 

 extends east from the highway for alxDut half a mile along this blufl". 

 (See sketch map, fig. i.)' 



^Dunn (History of Natchitoches, Louisiana Hist. Quart., vol. 3, no. i, 1920) 

 explains the maze of rivers and bayous in this vicinity by stating that the 

 Natchitoches island known to the early French explorers, about 50 miles long 

 by 3 or 4 miles wide, was formed by Cane River on the west and Rigolette de 

 Bon Dieu on the east. A smaller island was formed between the Ataho or 

 Little River and Rigolette de Bon Dieu. Originally flowing through a channel 

 now referred to as Old River, Red River cut through into Cane River about 

 1765 and then in 1832 broke into Rigolette de Bon Dieu, which it follows today 

 as far as the town of Colfax. 



