INTRODUCTION. 7 



birds of the open country are the Prairie Chicken, Meadowlark, Killdeer, 

 Mourning Dove, Marsh Hawk, Turkey Buzzard, Prairie Horned Lark, Lark 

 Sparrow, Bobohnk, and formerly the Bartramian Sandpiper or Upland 

 Plover. Along the tree-fringed streams are found the Bronzed Grackle 

 and Red- winged Blackbird, Red-headed Woodpecker and Flicker, and less 

 often the Red-bellied Woodpecker, Orchard Oriole, and Prothonotary and 

 Sycamore Warblers. The knolls and ridges here and there harbor the Quail 

 or Bobwhite, the Tufted Tit, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, and an occasional 

 Chat, Cardinal, Mocldngbird and Carolina Wren. 



The Great Marsh Region consists really of at least three separate regions, 

 viz. : The extensive marshes bordering the lower Detroit River and western 

 end of Lake Erie, the delta of the St. Clair River in Lake St. Clair, and the 

 great marshes along the southeast shore of Saginaw Bay. Of course there 

 are other marshes, and some large ones, for example at the mouths of the 

 Kalamazoo and Muskegon rivers, but most of them are small compared with 

 those first named. Characteristic birds of the great marshes during the 

 nesting season are the Pied-billed Grebe, Mallard Duck, Blue-winged Teal, 

 Coot, Gallinule, Bittern, Least Bittern, Great Blue Heron, Green Heron, 

 Black Tern, King Rail, Marsh Hawk, Long-billed Marsh Wren and Red- 

 winged Blackbird. During migration waterfowl in great variety visit these 

 marshes to feed and rest, and here are located some of the most famous 

 ducking grounds in the middle west. 



The Pine Forest Region proper is characterized by the presence in variable 

 quantity of the white pine and the red or Norway pine, and is mainly sandy 

 land lying north of the 43d parallel, though the original southern limit of the 

 merchantable white pine was an irregular curved line, beginning in the 

 southwest corner of the state in Van Buren county, extending northeastward 

 to the northern part of Gratiot county, and thence east through Saginaw, 

 Genesee, Lapeer and St. Clair counties to Port Huron. Throughout the 

 region north of this hne the white pines and the red pines were always dis- 

 tributed irregularly, the largest white pines scattered among the hardwoods, 

 and the unmixed tracts of this magnificent tree found on the sandy uplands 

 drained by the great streams, the Saginaw, Muskegon, Manistee, Au Sable 

 and Thunder Bay rivers. 



The region just outlined as the Pine Region scarcely merits that name at 

 present, since merchantable pine has been almost completely removed. The 

 precise area of standing pine timber left in the state today is difficult to 

 estimate, since cutting is going on constantly and the small amounts left 

 are being reduced every day. It is doubtless safe to say that very few 

 tracts exceeding eighty acres are still left in this entire area, and even 

 eighty-acre tracts are decidedly infrequent. Owing to the fact that much 

 other timber was intermixed with the pine in most places and that some of 

 the hardwood timber has not yet been touched, part of the region included 

 under the above title might now be properly transferred to some other, while 

 the greater part of the former pine region, at least in the Lower Peninsula, 

 would at present come under the head of "Cut-over Lands," and much of 

 this in turn unfortunately is also "Burnt-over Land." Throughout the 

 entire Pine Region there were great stretches of hardwood forest here and 

 there and more frequently swamps largely made up of the white cedar or 

 arbor vitae, tamarack, hemlock, balsam fir, and spruce. Hemlocks also occur- 

 red regularly among the pines and hardwoods scattei-cd more or less thickly 

 and often reaching gigantic size. Where these hemlocks stood among the 

 hardwoods and there was little underbrush they have commonly been killed 



