twelve or fifteen of them are often killed at one discharge of the gun. When 

 the dead and wounded have dropped from the flock, the remnant will often 

 whirl about and fly back over the fallen comrades, only to be met with another 

 deadly discharge. The wonder is that there are any pectoral sandpipers left to 

 add life to the spring marshes. 



We walked back through the woods and across the river bridge to a boat- 

 house. There we hired a comfortable and safe-looking snub-nosed boat for a 

 trip on the broad stream. The woman who rented us the boat said that not- 

 withstanding her occupation she had never been on the river in her life, and 

 in it only once. That once she fell in from the bank. She also told us, for 

 she saw that we were bird enthusiasts, that she loved the birds, but knew very 

 little about them. "There is one bird, however," she said, "to whose note I 

 am never tired of listening, though I don't know the singer's name. The song 

 is like the sound of the tinkling of the triangle. There, the bird is singing 

 now" ; and as she spoke the rich notes of the wood thrush came across the 

 river. I think that those who have once heard the "tinkling" of the little 

 musical instrument called the triangle will admit that the woman's description 

 of the wood thrush's song cannot be improved upon. 



We shaped our course up the stream. The Kankakee woods where they 

 edge the river are the haunts of the prothonotary warbler, perhaps the most 

 beautiful member of a notedly beautiful family. The prothonotary owes its 

 long name to the fact that it wears a yellow coat such as the prothonotaries, or 

 court clerks, wore once upon a time. We had looked forward to meeting these 

 warblers with a good deal of pleasure, but were disappointed to find that only 

 a few of them had arrived from their southern winter resort. One pair, how- 

 ever, came so close to us when we landed at a picturesque point on the river 

 that we had a golden opportunity in a double sense to get an adequate idea of 

 the bird's ways and beauty. The prothonotaries have a habit of constantly 

 flying back and forth over the river. Their yellow bodies are reflected in its 

 smooth surface, and the observer has a double color treat every time the bird 

 crosses. The prothonotary builds in a hole in a tree or in a decayed stump, 

 after the manner of the bluebird, and the nests are only less interesting than 

 the birds themselves. 



The tree swallows of the Kankakee Valley believe that the customs of their 

 ancestors are good enough for the descendants. They build in colonies in hollow 

 trees, like their forefathers. The tree swallows that wander away into the 

 haunts of men make their homes in bird-houses or in crevices in buildings. 

 Nearly every group of dead tree trunks along the Kankakee River has its 

 swallow colony. There were thousands of the birds flying up and down the 

 river, dropping down now and then to dip in its waters. We passed many of 

 them sitting upon the tips of dead branches or upon the scarred tops of stumps. 



74 



