Widmann — A Preliminary Catalog of the Birds of Missouri. 15 



Rivers the whole region is low and a large part of it under water 

 except in late summer and early fall, or in unusually dry seasons. 

 Originally nine-tenths of the whole area was overgrown with a 

 dense forest, the sandy ridge called Grand Prairie being the only 

 part not fully covered with tree growth. Trees of magnificent 

 size grew here by the millions; Cottonwoods and Cypresses 

 attained gigantic dimensions; Sweet or Red Gums had taken 

 possession of high levels, called islands; while the Bald Cypress 

 occupied the region of the regular yearly overflow, and the Tu- 

 pelos took to the sloughs and rivers themselves. Together with 

 the Sweet Gums holding the higher levels were different kinds 

 of Oak (White, Cow, Red, Shingle, Overcup and Willow Oaks), 

 Red Maples, Elm, White Ash, Sycamore, Pecan, Mockernut, 

 Shagbark Hickory, Hackberry, Sassafras, Black Gum, Tulip, 

 Mulberry, Boxelder, Catalpa, Holly, and others. Dogwoods, 

 Redbud, Papaw, Hazel, Spicebush, and Hercules Club were 

 plentiful among the lower tree growth intertwined with a large 

 variety of climbers, among them Crossvine, Wistaria, Muscadine, 

 Berchemia, Smilax and Cocculus. In the sloughs were Itea, 

 Leitneria, Planera, Micania and many others assisting the broad 

 belts of Polygonum densiflorum and Zizania miliacea to occupy 

 the sides, while Nelumbo, Nymphea and Nuphar covered the 

 deeper portions, filling the whole expanse of the water with 

 plant growth. 



Excepting the presence of cane-brakes (Arundinaria) in its 

 southern portion, the Peninsula does not differ essentially from 

 the rest of the alluvial southeast in any of its physical features, 

 but, having escaped the so-called civilization longest, retained 

 the primeval conditions longest, and only since the railroads 

 began to penetrate the region ten years ago is it slowly but surely 

 changing its former peculiarly wild and interesting character into 

 one of devastation and desolation. Not only that the best 

 timber is being removed, but hundreds of thousands of giant trees 

 are girdled in the expectation of making the sandy soil agri- 

 culturally available. Levee-building and ditching is going on 

 along the Mississippi River; lakes have been drained and much 

 land has been protected from highwater in the Mississippi; 

 the whole region is in a state of transformation; lumbering and 

 the saw mills have attracted a population whose chief diversion 

 is found in fishing and hunting, in devastating and destroying; 

 surely the Peninsula will soon cease to be the paradise of the nat- 

 uralist and hunter. Ducks, of which 150,000 were killed in a 



