The Songsters of the Skokie 



By Edward B. Clark 



North of the city of Chicago, and a mile inland from the shore of Lake 

 INIichigan, lie the stretches of the Skokie swamp. This unreclaimed marshland is 

 of great extent, and in places it has a heavy fringe of scrub-oak, thick brush and 

 tangled brier. The bluffs of the lake shore rise vertically to the height of one 

 hundred feet. A table-land extends for some distance westward, and then slopes 

 gently down to the edge of the sluggish stream which stretches its length along 

 through the heart of the swamp. Still farther west the land is low and well cul- 

 tivated. Standing upon the table-land at the east one looks far off to a heavy line 

 of timber which skirts the Desplaines river and marks the limit of vision. By a 

 sort of an optical illusion the woods of the Desplaines and the adjacent land seem 

 to stand much higher than the country which intervenes. The whole effect of 

 the view is that of a valley, and I know of no other place in Illinois where such an 

 adequate idea may be formed of the character of the landscapes which have made 

 some of the Eastern valleys famous. 



There is a wealth of bird life in the region of the Skokie. The diversified 

 nature of the country makes possible the finding of many varieties of the feathered 

 kind. I have tramped the Skokie at all seasons and always with profit. The roads 

 that lead from the lake westward through swamp and meadow are in the spring- 

 time musical with the singing of birds. One particular road I have in mind be- 

 cause of the many friends that I have made along its pleasant way. It is rarely 

 used, and at its beginning in the town of Highland Park it is but little more than 

 a tree-shadowed lane. The orioles build in the swaying elm-boughs that droop 

 above the fences, and many robins place their mud houses in the maples along the 

 beginning of the way. 



A tragedy is perhaps not an auspicious thing with which to begin a day's out- 

 ing. The bird-student, however, must harden himself to endure the sight of the 

 tragic, or else it were better to put the field-glass in its case and forego the study. 

 There is perhaps something of the savage still left in us. and I am free to confess 

 that tragedies are not altogether uninteresting things. I am likewise free to con- 

 fess that I have a sort of a "sneaking admiration" for the hawk family. They 

 are freeboters and murderers, but there is something in the lives of these birds 

 that is typical of the wildness of the woods and the freedom of the fields. There 

 is a charm about their very boldness, and that landscape lacks something which 

 does not have occasionally the living interest which is added by a hawk beating 

 the covers to startle its cowering quarry into flight. 



One May morning, before the sun was showing above the blufif, I started 

 westward along this favorite Skokie road. Just beyond the elms and the maples 

 at the road's beginning lie some open cultivated fields with a barn and outbuild- 



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