AN INTRODUCTION TO THE
 MAMMALIAN SPECIES OF THE ORDWAY-SWISHER
 PRESERVE



 John F. Eisenberg'



 The first comprehensive natural history survey of Florida by a European was
conducted by William Bartram in the 18th century (Bartram 1792). Homo sapiens
occupied North America by successive invasions from at least 25,000 to 10,000
years before present. For a survey of native southeastern Amerindians (Homo
sapiens) and their cultures, see Swanton (1946). Burial mounds and canoes have
been identified on the preserve.
 Modern mammal surveys in Florida were initiated by Chapman and Bangs in
the late 19th century after the Armed Settlement Act of 1847 which favored
European occupancy. During the 20th century, naturalistic efforts became focused
in south central Florida with the founding of the Archbold Biological Research
Station, and early publications concentrated on Highlands County. Further work
in south Florida is contained in the dissertation submitted by Schwartz to the
University of Michigan in 1952. In north central Florida, H. B. Sherman and his
students began work in the 1930s based in Gainesville. It should be of interest to
contemporary students that he invented the Sherman trap and initiated studies of
trap, mark, and release, thus gaining some insight into the natural history and
demography of small mammals. H. B. Sherman subsequently became Chairman of
the Department of Biology at the University of Florida, Gainesville. James N.
Layne, formerly of the Florida State Museum and currently Senior Research
Biologist at the Archbold, has perpetuated the tradition of small mammal
population studies in Highlands County. Stevenson (1976) made the first attempt
to list all living vertebrates of Florida.
 Excluding the strictly aquatic taxa (Sirenia, Cetacea, and the Pinnipedia),
Hamilton and Whitaker (1979) list 150 species of mammals found in the last 100
years east of the Mississippi. This number includes four well-established human
introductions (Mus, Rattus [two species], and Myocaster) exclusive of domesticated
species (e.g. cattle, dogs, cats, sheep, goats, swine, etc.). If we eliminate the four
rodent introductions and domestics, then 146 species are valid for the eastern

 The author holds the Katharine Ordway Chair of Ecosystems Conservation at the Florida Museum of Natural History and School of
Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, P. O. Box 117800, Gainesville FL 32611-7800, U. S. A

EISENBERG, J. F. 1995. An introduction to the mammalian species of the Ordway-Swisher Preserve.
Bull. Florida Mus. Nat. Hist. 38, Pt. II:165-176.