282 



To one or the other of these stations almost daily visits were 

 made during August, 19 lo. The writer's data were obtained chiefly 

 by watching animals. It was possible to identify most of the birds 

 positively without shooting them. Binocular field-glasses constituted 

 the most useful instrument for the work. For small mammals, 

 furthermore, considerable trapping was done. The results of the 

 efforts to find vertebrates, made by the writer and by his co-workers 

 (incidentally — while doing their special parts of the field work), 

 were on the whole disappointing. Yet the methods seemed little at 

 fault, for they were of a well-tested kind. It is very evident that 

 vertebrates were not present in any considerable numbers, either as 

 individuals or species, in either of the regions. Hence this contribu- 

 tion on the vertebrate life of the two areas is unimportant as com- 

 pared with the other parts of the report on the life of this region. 



The writer is under considerable obligation to Mr. C. B. Cory 

 for naming a few birds and mammals for him ; to Mr. A. G. Ruth- 

 ven for naming amphibians and reptiles; and to his collaborators in 

 the field, Mr. E. N. Transeau and Mr. C. C. Adams, both of whom 

 gave him information and other help in doing the work on verte- 

 brates. 



The Prairie Area, Station I 



The prairie region studied, lies, as before stated, along the Toledo, 

 St. Louis and Western Railroad (known as the Clover Leaf Road). 

 It is approximately sixteen hundred feet long by forty feet in width. 

 A line of telegraph poles, placed two hundred feet apart and sup- 

 porting five wires, runs the length of it. Plates LXV, LXVI, and 

 LXVII, Fig. I, will give one a general idea of the place. 



The surface of the area is uneven. Near its middle is a marked 

 depression, a few hundred feet in length and with a bottom five or 

 six feet below the railroad-track bed. This is a west extension of 

 a large piece of low ground comprising eight or nine acres of the 

 field just east of the area studied. Commonly the ground here is 

 wet, and it may be covered with water, forming a pool with its west 

 margin at Station I. Marsh conditions may also develop here, which 

 probably resemble those that were prevalent in the large prairie 

 marshes or sloughs that existed in much of the region north of 

 Charleston before the days of ditching and tile drains. This low, 

 commonly wet area will be referred to in this paper as Substation d. 

 The main part of the low region in the field east of the station is 

 sometimes a large mud flat with black soil, which on drying becomes 

 much cracked. Plate LXV, Fig. 2 ; Plate LXVI, Fig. i ; Plate LXVII, 

 Fig. 2; Plate LXVIII; Plate LXIX, Fig. i; and Plate LXXI, 



