Read Ebook: The Ohio naturalist Vol. I No. 6 April 1901 by Various

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Entered at the Post Office at Columbus, Ohio, as second class matter.

PUBLISHED BY

THE BIOLOGICAL CLUB OF THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

THE LAKE LABORATORY.

HERBERT OSBORN.

Most readers of the NATURALIST are probably aware that the University maintains at Sandusky a lake laboratory, devoted to the investigation and study of the life of the lake region. As this number of the NATURALIST is devoted mostly to reports upon work which has been done there, it may be of interest to give some facts regarding opportunities offered and the character of the work provided for.

The laboratory was first opened by Professor Kellicott in 1895, with a view specially to give opportunity for investigation, and he and several of his students engaged in work there through the summers of '95-6-7. Some of the results of these studies were published, especially Professor Kellicott's report upon the Rotifers of Sandusky Bay and the list of Odonata for the State, which includes numerous records for that locality. During the summer of 1899 the writer and several associates occupied the laboratory, and studies upon the fishes of the locality, records of Hemiptera and some other groups have been incorporated in different papers. In 1900 the scope of the laboratory was enlarged so as to provide courses of instruction in Botany and Zoology, and a number of students and investigators improved the opportunity to work during the summer vacation. Reports on the Odonata, sponges, Bryozoa, and the notes on birds appearing in the present issue indicate the range of the studies engaged in that season. However, many lines of study which were begun by different students and which will require several seasons for observations, are not as yet ready for publication. It may be noted, however, that the flora of the locality has been very thoroughly collected by Professor Moseley, of the Sandusky High School, and his publication on the "Sandusky Flora" furnishes an admirable guide to the location of the various species of plants, and an excellent basis for additional investigation. The laboratory will at present accommodate twenty-five or thirty students, and its capacity will doubtless be increased as necessity requires. It is a two-story frame building 22 x 66 feet, the upper floor of which is used for investigation and the lower in part for students' laboratory tables. It is supplied with city water, a number of aquaria, has a convenient dark room for photographic work, and answers admirably for the purpose for which it is used--that is, for a temporary summer laboratory. The laboratory is supplied with two boats equipped with sails, and designed especially for work in the bay and marshes. Dredges, seines, plankton net and other collecting apparatus are provided, while microscopes, microtomes, books, and other laboratory equipments are taken from the university.

While under the management of the Ohio State University, it is desired to make the laboratory as useful as possible to instructors and investigators in biology, wherever located. To this end table room is granted free of charge to qualified investigators, and any one wishing to undertake investigation of biological problems will be given all possible opportunity. Courses of study have been designed especially for high school teachers and for advanced university students, the former devoting themselves to methods of field work and preservation of material for laboratory use, and acquiring methods of laboratory work in connection with study of typical forms. For the latter, advanced courses in embryology, morphology, entomology, plant ecology, botany, etc., are offered. The students taking such courses can secure for them university credits covering equivalent courses in the university curriculum. It is needless to say that the opportunities for field observation, collecting, and the laboratory study of representative forms are most favorable. For special advanced courses in embryology, and particularly those pertaining to microscopical technique, the more elaborate equipment of the university is of course preferable.

NOTES ON THE FLORA OF SANDUSKY.

W. A. KELLERMAN.

The visitor or student at the Lake Laboratory will find in the neighborhood of Sandusky a flora in many respects peculiar and richer in species perhaps than in any other region of similar area in the state of Ohio. For our knowledge of the Sandusky plants we are indebted mainly to the continued and energetic explorations of E. L. Moseley, teacher of botany in the Sandusky High School. Our visits to the region have been numerous, and many weeks have been spent in herborizing during the last few seasons. Mr. Moseley's Sandusky Flora and additions by myself and Mr. Griggs reported before the Academy of Science, and published in THE OHIO NATURALIST, Vol. 1, fully represent our knowledge of this interesting flora to date.

In the "Sandusky Flora," page 2, Mr. Moseley states that "the surpassing richness of the Sandusky flora is not due to the fact that it includes islands within its territory, for scarcely any of its species are confined to the islands; nor is it in a very large measure due to the fact that it includes species that are confined to the lake shore; but rather to peculiarities of climate and geological features, both of which depend to some extent on the proximity of the lake."

Space will allow reference to but few of the interesting and rarer plants. On Cedar Point and a few other places the Prickly pear, Opuntia humifusa, appears in great abundance, but is reported for no other stations in Ohio. The illustration shows a patch of this plant, and also indicates the sparse vegetation in the open sandy Black Oak woods of Cedar Point. Here we found three specimens of the rare Lea's Oak, one fine specimen of the common Juniper , two specimens of the Sand cherry , none of which are given in the "Sandusky Flora" for this place, and one only--the Juniper--for Catawba. Of other rare or specially interesting plants for this point the following may be mentioned: Ammophila arenaria, Panicum virgatum, Salix glaucophylla, Salix sericea, Euphorbia polygonifolia, Pinus strobus, Stipa spartea, Chenopodium leptophyllum, Lepargyraea canadensis, OEnothera rhombipetala, Artemisia caudata, Arctostaphylos uvaursi, Symphoricarpus pauciflorus, Utricularia gibba and Lacinaria scariosa.

At Marblehead and Catawba the flora is equally rich in local and interesting plants. Huge Buckeyes occur, one of which measures nine feet and two inches in circumference. The Red Oaks are numerous and remarkably variable in their fruits. There occurs Zygadena elegans and Koeleria cristata, Meibomia illonoensis, Solanum rostratum, and Picradenia acaulis--all western species. The Lakeside Daisy, as the Picradenia has been locally named, is especially attractive. It occurs in one place in Illinois, but otherwise known only far west of the Mississippi river.

Elsewhere, and especially in the prairie region of Erie county, there occur such rare species as Aletris fainosa, Aristida gracilis and A. purpurascens, Salix candida, Prunus cuneata, Psoralea pedunculata, Rhexia virginica, Eryngium yuccifolium, Asclepias obtusifolia and A. sullivantii, and Helianthus mollis.

The bay is even richer, presenting acres and acres of Nelumbo, Sagittaria, Potamogetons, Rushes, Reeds, Duckweeds, Polygonum, Ceratophyllum, and others too numerous to mention. The innumerable and unenumerated Algae must not go unmentioned--here, as in many other lines, the enthusiastic students will reap a rich harvest.

ZOOLOGICAL NOTES.

HERBERT OSBORN.

Cedar Point offers a number of rather peculiar features for study, and the fauna of the locality presents a very attractive field. On the one hand there is an extensive beach some six or seven miles in length, from which the sand dune formation extends backwards and merges into a swampy area bordering the waters of Sandusky Bay. On the beach after every storm will be found a large mass of drift material, including numerous fishes that have been thrown ashore. These furnish an attraction for a number of forms of animals, a complete census of which has as yet not been attempted. It may be mentioned, however, that numerous species of flies take to them to deposit their eggs, the larvae a few days after each storm being a conspicuous element to be followed a few days later by pupae or mature flies; these in turn attract various birds and large numbers of toads, which seem to secure a very constant source of food especially in this vicinity. Species of burrowing Hymenoptera are conspicuous and upon the sand dunes the grasshopper is especially abundant. A millipede is also very abundant crawling over the sand, and turtles from the lake pass up the beach and over the dunes to deposit their eggs at favorable points.

EAGLE NESTS.--The bald eagle nests at various points along the lake shore, and some of these nests were observed, and photographs secured during the past summer. One of these is between Sandusky and Huron, about two miles from Huron, and a half mile from the Huron street railway, in a Shag bark hickory tree. It stands away from other timber, although it is said formerly to have been surrounded entirely by trees. It is probably one hundred and twenty-five feet in height, or more, and doubtless towered above surrounding trees, and at present constitutes the most conspicuous object to be seen for miles in any direction. The nest, as shown in the accompanying photographs, must be at least a hundred feet from the ground, but owing to the impossibility of climbing the tree, and from the fact that no exact means of measurement were at hand, the precise height is unknown. This nest, we were told, has been in this tree only a few years, but prior to its building one has existed in the immediate locality for at least thirty years past. The nest is evidently five or six feet in diameter, being somewhat more flattened than other nests observed, owing probably to the spreading character of the limbs upon which it rests. No eagles were to be seen at the time of our visit to the tree, but we were informed by the proprietor of the farm that they had reared a brood during the season, and one was seen later by Mr. Griggs, at the time his photograph was taken.

Other nests occur on Kelly's Island, and we made a trip to that locality for the purpose of noting them and taking photographs, which, however, on account of the day being unfavorable, are not very clear, and cannot be reproduced to advantage. They are about a mile and a half eastward from the steamboat landing, one occurring in a Maple tree about seventy-five feet in height, and the nest at a height of about sixty-five feet, being at least six feet in height, fitting the somewhat acute crotch, and at least five or six feet across the top. The other is in a Burr Oak tree, some distance from other trees, in a vineyard, and plainly to be seen from the lake steamers when to the southeast of the landing. The tree is about a hundred feet high, and the nest is about eighty or eighty-five feet from the ground. It is similar in form to the one just mentioned. Portions can be seen to contain very large branches, which show out conspicuously from the ground.

TRIMEROTROPIS MARITIMA.--This grasshopper which is very abundant on the dunes along Cedar Point Beach, is of special interest because of its protective resemblance to the sand on which it ordinarily rests. It is one of the best examples I have seen of adaptive coloration, but does not seem to have been mentioned in such connection, possibly because the colors change in preserved specimens so that the mimicry is totally lost. They reach maturity in latter part of June, and while only larvae are seen in middle of June, nearly all have matured by the latter part of July. They occur most abundantly on the sand adjacent to the clumps of grass upon which they doubtless feed, though so far no individuals have been observed actually feeding on grass leaves, but one was observed eating a fragment of apple cast up in drift materials on the beach. When disturbed they invariably alight on the sand, upon which they become at once invisible. About the only way to capture them is to throw a net down on a spot where one has been seen to alight, and then it not infrequently happens that two or even three will be caught though their presence has not been suspected.

The adult is whitish gray speckled with ferruginous fuscous and black, conspicuous ferruginous points occurring usually on the anterior margin of pronotum and on the lower borders of epimera of meso- and meta-thorax, humeri of elytra and discal carina of femur, these may be faint or obsolete, and on wings and legs may form slender lides; dark freckles occur on carinae of vertex and face, forming a series back of collar on pronotum, on posterior border of pronotum and on sides of elytra and hind femora; on elytra they are thicker at three places, one-fourth, one-half and two-thirds from base, constituting fairly distinct patches, and on femur are two indistinct bands corresponding with well marked black bands on the inner side. Anterior and middle femora and tibiae nearly white, milky, with gray annulations; hind tibiae gray at base, distal two-thirds yellow, in one form orange or reddish, spines yellow, tipped with black, anterior and middle tarsi ferruginous or reddish, hind tarsi yellow. The sternum is finely pilose. A variety is quite uniformly yellowish gray.

The larvae are similarly speckled but differ in that the dorsum of abdomen is densely speckled, while in adults this part protected by the folded wings is not speckled. In all these points a perfect adaptation to the color and markings that blend with the sand grains is evident.

In the latter part of the summer of 1899, many of these grasshoppers died from an attack of parasitic fungus, and in such cases climbed up on stems of grass where their whitened bodies became very conspicuous. Eggs are doubtless laid in autumn probably in packed sand in grass clumps to hatch in following spring.

NOTES ON THE BIRD LIFE OF CEDAR POINT.

ROBERT F. GRIGGS.

Ecologically Cedar Point is an exceedingly interesting region. It is a narrow peninsula on one side of which flourishes a xerophytic dune flora, and on the other a luxuriant hydrophytic marsh flora. The meeting of these two gives the flora a very peculiar aspect. Except at its tip Cedar Point has never been inhabited. It is still in very nearly its primitive condition. With a view to seeing how these and other factors peculiar to the region have influenced its bird life, these notes have been assembled. No pretentions to systematic completeness are made; the present purpose is more to determine the general character of the avifauna than to give a complete list including many accidental or occasional species which would overshadow the more characteristic residents. The observations upon which these notes are based were taken during the summer months when there were few species migrating, so that with the exceptions noted they include only the bulk of the summer residents at the Point. The birds of the marsh and bay are so inseparable from those of the point proper, that the commoner of them have been included, though no special study of them was made. The following birds were observed:

Sterna hirundo Linn. Common Tern, common.

Hydrochelidon nigra surinamensis . Black Tern, common, breeds.

Botaurus lentiginosus . American Bittern, common.

Ardetta exilis . Least Bittern, common.

Ardea Herodias Linn. Great Blue Heron, common.

Gallinula galeata . Florida Gallinule.

Fulica americana Gmel. Coot, common, breeds.

Ereunetes pusillus . Semi-palmated Sandpiper. No specimens were taken to render identification sure-occurs in numbers on the beach.

Symphemia semipalmata . Willet, a few individuals.

Aegialitis vocifera . Killdeer, common.

Zenaidura macroura . Mourning Dove, not common, breeds.

Circus hudsonius . Marsh Hawk.

Halaeetus leucocephalus . Bald Eagle, nests near the foot of the Point.

Coccyzus americanus . Yellow-billed Cuckoo, scarce.

Coccyzus erythropthalmus . Black-billed Cuckoo, quite common.

Colaptes auratus . Flicker. I do not understand why the woodpeckers should not be well represented. There appears to be abundant feeding ground for them; yet I saw only one solitary flicker, the least specialised of all the woodpeckers.

Trochilus colubris . Ruby-throated Hummingbird, congregates in small flocks about the frequent clumps of trumpet creeper.

Tyrannus tyrannus . Kingbird, breeds. This and the other fly-catchers are very abundant on account of the great number of insects occurring.

Myiarchus crinitus . Crested Flycatcher, breeds.

Contopus virens . Wood Pewee, very common.

Agelaius phoeniceus . Red-winged Blackbird, common.

Icterus galbula . Baltimore Oriole, one small flock migrating.

Quiscalus quiscula aeneus . Crow Blackbird. This with the redwings and probably the other blackbirds congregates in very large flocks.

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