12 Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History. 



Rivers, lakes, or ponds bordered with willow swamps, are 

 essential to its presence; hence it is not surprising that 

 in great tra'^ts of Illinois the bird is wanting, while in 

 adjoining portions it may be present in great numbers. 

 Formerly Illinois was a typical prairie state, but the 

 rapid advance of civilization has converted the rolling 

 prairies into cultivated farms, has dotted the land 

 with villages and cities of wondrous growth, and has 

 utterly eliminated the characteristics of the western 

 prairie. The original timber is restricted chiefly to the 

 river courses and to precarious growths along the 

 smaller streams. The river bottoms, lying as they do in 

 many places between high and sheltering bluffs, and well 

 watered by inundations and the numerous tributary 

 streams, prove the richest portions of the State in vege- 

 tation. Their elevation varies from one hundred to one 

 thousand feet above the sea, gradually increasing north- 

 ward, the country also assuming a more rugged charac- 

 ter, until, finalh', the southern type is lost altogether. 

 As I have stated, these bottoms are exceedingly rich Id 

 vegetation, especially in those lowest portions bordering 

 the rivers, where are found vast willow swamps and 

 immense tracts of huge timber, standing through the 

 greater part of the year in black and sluggish back- 

 waters, and in many places extending over a number of 

 miles. These tracts are the home of the prothonotary 

 warbler. Probably in no other locality in the great 

 Mississippi Valley is this warbler found in greater abund- 

 ance than in the timbered swamps along the Illinois 

 River, and in southern, southeastern, and western Illi- 

 nois. Although a common and characteristic bird in 

 these localities, in those parts of the State wherein no. 

 suitable environment for its nidification exists, the pro- 

 thonotary, or golden swamp warbler, as it is frequently 

 and appropriately called, Is extremely rare. Its northern 

 range has never been exactly stated in any of the 

 standard works. Only by a comparison of local Hsts 

 can this be authentically ascertained or the distribution 

 of the bird definitely traced. 



