BUFFALO SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCES 151 



5th and then proceeded to Estero, a drive of 16 miles farther 

 south through an almost pathless pine forest. At Estero I was 

 very kindly and pleasantly entertained for a week by the Kore- 

 shan Unity as the guest of my cousin Junius B. VanDuzee. 

 Here the country was comparatively new and the conditions 

 for collecting by no means ideal but the fauna was quite differ- 

 ent from that farther north and the results of my work proved 

 in the highest degree satisfactory. At this place there was a 

 large intermixture of West Indian forms and I found this to be 

 especially the case on Estero Island at the mouth of Estero 

 River. Along this gulf coast and on the outlying islands there 

 is a considerable growth of subtropical vegetation of which the 

 mangroves and cocoanut palms form perhaps the best index, 

 and with this vegetation is found the subtropical fauna which 

 extends as far north at least as Sanibel Island at the mouth of 

 the Caloosahatchee. 



The physical features of Florida are by no means encour- 

 aging to the collector first passing across the state. To him 

 almost the entire state would seem to be one interminable pine 

 barren; a nearly dead level of sand covered with an open forest 

 of the tall slender trees of the long-leaved pine and overgrown 

 below with the tangled stems of the low palmetto, or in places 

 covered with a sparse growth of a long wiry grass intermixed 

 with low huckleberry and other small bushes and weeds. A 

 more careful inspection will however show that the conditions 

 are by no means so monotonous and that frequent local varia- 

 tions of soil and humidity produce a varied vegetation on which 

 subsists a really very rich Carolinian and subtropical fauna. 

 The numerous tidal streams and lakes are bordered by a 

 heavy growth of cypress, water and live oaks, and other decid- 

 uous trees which are frequently festooned with the Spanish 

 moss. The pine barrens are broken by "cypress swamps" and 

 "palmetto hummocks" and across the middle of the state 

 especially between Orlando and Lakeland, there are slightly 

 elevated ridges clothed with broad leaved oaks and other vege- 

 tation quite distinct from that of the pine barrens. The fauna 

 of the shore marshes is characteristic and the open prairie 

 country along Haw Creek has its own peculiar fauna, and even 

 in the monotonous pine forests we find a much greater variety 

 of insect life than one would think possible. 



