BANGS: LAND MAMMALS OF FLORIDA AND GEORGIA. 169 
Southern or tropical Florida is a region apparently poorly 
adapted to the needs of most mammals, being principally coral or 
limestone rock, and vast submerged swamps of cypress and man¬ 
grove and endless saw grass marshes. The burrowing mammals, 
such as moles and salamanders, can not live there, and all smaller 
mammals, excepting the south Florida cotton rat, the south Florida 
rice-field mouse, the Florida cotton mouse, and the everglade gray 
squirrel, are rare. There is a decided difference in the flora of this 
region from that of northern and central Florida, as shown by the 
presence of such trees as the royal palm, mahogany, and many 
other tropical plants, while the manatee and crocodile attest to the 
tropical element in the fauna. 
Faunal Areas. — Two faunal areas come within the scope of 
the present paper. 1. The Lower Austral Zone, which includes 
eastern Georgia and the whole of Florida south to about half way 
down the peninsula. 
2. The Tropical Zone (perhaps better subtropical) which accord¬ 
ing to Dr. Merriam (Nat. geog. mag., 1894, vol. 6) covers the 
lower half of the peninsula from Tampa Bay on the west and Cape 
Canaveral on the east. See also, a very important paper by E. A. 
Schwarz, entitled, “ The insect fauna of semitropical Florida with 
special regard to Coleoptera ” (Entom. Amer., Dec., 1888, p. 165- 
175), where the author discusses at length the tropical element of 
southern Florida. 
A few species conform very well to these two faunal areas and 
have lower austral and tropical (or subtropical) subspecies. Among 
these are the cotton-tail rabbit, the marsh rabbit, the Hying squirrel, 
the gray squirrel, and the cotton mouse. 
On the whole, hoAvever, the mammalian fauna of Florida does 
not conform very closely to the faunal divisions, for which two 
causes can be assigned: — 
1st. The long peninsulation of Florida, which in itself would 
have a tendency to change the forms living far down upon it, just 
as being confined to an island does. 
2d. The extreme localization of many of the smaller species and 
their special adaptation to certain habitats. 
For instance, the little beach mouse, with a highly developed 
protective coloration, lives only along the beaches and sand hills of 
the east peninsula, and the big-eared Florida deer mouse is only 
found in the black-jack ridges. Neither of these species respects 
