INTRODUCTION. 15 



On the opeij prairie, comparative quiet reigned. The most 

 numerous bird there was "Dick Cissel " (Spiza americana), who 

 monopolized tbe iron-weeds, uttering his rude but agreeable ditty 

 with such regularity and persistence that the general stillness seemed 

 scarcely broken ; hardly less numerous Henslow's Buntings were like- 

 wise perched upon the weed-stalks, and their weak but emphatic 

 se-wick sounded almost like a faint attempt at imitation of Dick 

 Cissel's song. The grasshopper-like wiry trill of the Yellow-winged 

 Sparrow; the meandering, wavering warble of the Prairie Lark 

 (Otocoris alpestris praiicola) coming apparently from nowhere, but 

 in reality from a little speck floating far up in the blue sky, and 

 the sweet "peek you can't see me" of the Meadow-lark, completed 

 the list of songs heard on the open prairie. Many kinds of birds 

 besides those already described were seen, but to name them all 

 would require too much space. We should not, however, omit to 

 mention the elegant Swallow-tailed Kites, which now and then 

 wheeled into view as they circled over the prairie, or their cousins 

 and companions, the Mississippi Kites, soaring above them through 

 the transparent atmosphere; nor must we forget a pair of croaking 

 ravens who, after circling about for a short time over the border of 

 the woods, flew away to the heavy timber in the Fox Eiver bottoms. 

 Early in the following August we paid a second visit to the same 

 spot, and found a material change in its aspect. A season of 

 universal drought having passed, the prairie, which before was com- 

 paratively brown and sober in its coloring, was bedecked with 

 flowers of varied hue. The Mocking-birds, Brown Thrashers, Chats, 

 and most of the other songsters, were silent, but the shrill screech 

 of a large species of Cicada repeatedly startled us as we brushed 

 against the weeds, while numerous grasshoppers were far more noisy 

 than the birds. As we came well out on the prairie, however, a 

 beautiful and unlooked-for sight appeared; in short, we were com- 

 pletely transfixed by the to us novel spectacle of numerous exquisitely 

 graceful Swallow-tailed Kites floating about on bouyant wing, now 

 gliding to the right or left, then sweeping in broad circles, and 

 approaching so near that several were easily shot. Soaring" lightly 

 above them were many Mississippi Kites, of which one would now 

 and then close its wings and plunge downward, as if to strike the 

 very earth, but instantly checking the velocity of its fall by sudden 

 spreading of the wings, would then shoot upward again almost to 



