GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA 223

 WILD ANIMALS, OR FAUNA
 No description of central Florida would be complete without some account of the native fauna, but the subject is difficult to treat satisfactorily in a few pages, especially for one who makes no pretension to being a zoologist. Although an expert ornithologist, herpetologist, ichthyologist, entomologist or conchologist might be able after careful examination of literature and specimens, or after spending a few months in the area, to prepare a fairly complete list of the animals of his particular group occurring in central Florida, there is hardly any one person in these days of specialization who is a good authority on all groups of animals. Furthermore, even if we knew exactly what species occurred in the area as a whole, existing literature and collections would be quite inadequate to show just which ones belonged in any one of the ten regions, for most animals do not stay in one place to be counted and mapped like trees, and some of the rarer or less conspicuous ones may be seen in any one region by competent observers only at long intervals. And finally, even if it was possible to get ,absolutely complete lists for each region, they would mean little to the layman, and those for neighboring regions might be very much alike in the absence of data on relative abundance, such as have been given in the foregoing pages for the commoner plants.
 Very few botanists or zoologists as yet seem to appreciate the importance of studying wild plants and animals quantitatively after the manner of a census, and it is of course more' difficult with animals than with plants, on account of the impossibility of counting those which travel rapidly or whose safety 'depends on concealment. And civilization increases the difficulty, for even in such a thinly settled area as ours the more conspicuous animals, such as bears, deer, alligators, wild turkeys, egrets and paroquets, have been hunted almost to the point of extermination, for their meat, hides, or plumage, or merely for "sport."* Birds are
 *Among the very few quantitative studies of our animals that have been made the second and last annual report of E. Z. Jones, Game and Fish Commissioner of Florida, published in the spring of 1915, deserves special mention. It contains a table giving the estimated number of bears, deer, wildcats, coons, opossums, otters, skunks, squirrels, quail, wild turkeys, ducks, and cranes in each county; and although some of the figures may be very inaccurate, it is certainly a step in the right direction.