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beetle, Donacia. These beetles, as adults, are metallically green, bronze or 
purplish in color and feed upon the leaves of the same plants whose roots 
and stems had harbored them as larvae. Juvenile shrimps, one of the most 
characteristic forms of shallow water lakes, occurred on the vegetation. 
Muskrat houses were everywhere, built with lotus leaves and placed partly 
on old willows and partly submerged. Over 3,000 of them have been trapped 
here in the past two years, according to the refuge manager. 
Although all types of interesting aquatic life were in abundance, Big 
Lake is chiefly a refuge for migratory waterfowl, and large numbers of 
puddle and river ducks land here in spring and fall, chiefly in the fall when 
most nearby land is dry. The wood duck is the only breeder; Canada geese, 
gadwalls, mallards, black ducks and other species commonly spend the winter 
here. This is one of the spots where the ranges of the eastern and Arkansas 
kingbird overlap, and both species nest throughout the swamp side by side. 
Redstarts, prothonotary warblers, and blue-gray gnatcatchers are common 
residents. 
At the White River Refuge near St. Charles in southern Arkansas, we 
obtained our first glimpse of a typical southern bottomland forest. The 
ecologist calls this type of forest a floodplain, as it borders a river which 
overflows its banks regularly. The “first bottoms” (the land immediately 
next to the river) are flooded annually. The ‘second bottoms” (land back 
from the river and slightly higher) are flooded about once in ten years at 
St. Charles. The flood level of the White River here is 25 feet, and in the 
spring of 1948 35.4 feet of water had accumulated from the terrific rains. 
As late as July, the date of our visit, some of this water was still standing 
in parts of the first bottoms, and other areas had been dry only a few days. 
Many giant trees, most of them quite foreign to Illinois soil, thrive in this 
moist environment — huge red gum with star-shaped leaves, sweet and 
bitter pecan (bitter in the wetter spots), Nataly’s oak, overcup oak, pump- 
kin ash with a swollen, buttressed base like that of cypress, and water 
locust, a species resembling honey locust but occurring in wet places. Here 
grew the unusual cedar elm with the reddish bark of a cedar and the leaves 
of an elm, willow oak, the oak with leaves like a willow, southern hackberry, 
and water oak carrying leaves of at least four different shapes on the 
same tree. 
In these bottoms live mammals and birds of well-adapted habits. Bears 
are present, deer are plentiful, and there are large numbers of raccoon and 
mink. The bear and deer are seen mostly during the spring and early sum- 
mer, when they come out of the bottoms because of the high water level. 
It is at this season that deer feed largely on water cress, a small aquatic 
member of the mustard family which.-is to them a favorite delicacy. ‘‘Coons” 
make quite a nuisance of themselves to farmers in the vicinity. They go 
out into the nearby corn fields at night and knock over stalks to get at the 
corn, thus ruining the stalks. Because of the damage they do and because 
there are so many of them, a trapping campaign is enforced each winter to 
reduce the population. In 1943 20,000 “coons” were trapped around the 
boundary of the refuge. Fifty per cent of the skins were sold at a profit of 
$66,000, bringing a price of $6.60 per pelt. In this manner the number of 
