From Haunts of Coot and Hern 



By Edward B. Clark 



When the snow nieUs in .March, and the spring rains heat un the land, the 

 hanks of the Kankakee River can no longer hold their hunien of waters. The 

 fiood rises rapidly and spreads over the outlying meadows and woodlands. In 

 Stark County, Indiana, the broadening river forms a considerable body of water 

 known as English Lake. Summer comes before the flood recedes to leave great 

 pools and morasses in its wake as reminders of its spring-time visit. In June 

 these English Lake recd-grown stretches are "the haimts of coot and hern," of 

 the redwings, the marsh wrens, and the rails. In the earlier spring great flocks 

 of ducks, geese, and plover make a resting and feeding place of the reaches of 

 sw^amp and open water. There is a world of bird-life throughout the whole 

 English Lake section. Perha])s there better than any other place in the Middle 

 West may be studied the habits of the water I)irds. A Chicago shooting club 

 owns much of the marsh, and as all hunting is done under rules which have 

 regard for the preservations of species, the birds still throng to the locality with 

 the first touch of spring-time warmth or of autumn chill. 



In the third week of May, 1901, four weeks after the shooting season had 

 closed, I tramped and rowed through the English Lake section with Ruthven 

 Deane, the president of the Illinois Audubon Society. It is something to be 

 familiar with many birds; it is something better to know them all. I learned 

 much on that trip, both of l)ir(ls and of methods of obser\'ation. Mr. Deane is 

 closer to Nature's heart than most men, and of him she seems to have made a 

 confidant. We reached the English Lake club-house just at dusk, but all the 

 bird voices were not hushed. While waiting the call to supper we strolled down 

 to the banks of the little flooded inlet which makes a water highway for the 

 rowboats from the house to the river. A vesper sparrow sang to us as we walked 

 through the deepening darkness. From the damp thicket on the further side of 

 the inlet came the voice of the Maryland yellow-throat. He was as insistent in 

 his calling as is the custom with his tribe when once roused to vocal efifort, but 

 even the yellow-throat's insistence gave way before the screams and scoldings 

 of a pair of robins. I have heard robins raise disturbances before. They are 

 often the common scolds of a bird neighborhood, but the performance of the 

 pair that we heard that night rather outdid in volume of sound anything of 

 which I had supposed the robin to be capable. It was too dark to investigate 

 the cause of the trouble, and so the matter was put off until sunrise. The robins 

 apparently wished to make it certain that we were impressed with their trouble, 

 if trouble it were, for the last thing that we heard on closing the door of the 

 dining-room behind us was a noise that was nothing less than a screech, and it 

 came from both birds in unison. 



lust as the sun tmiched the treetops the next morning we were out of doors. 



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