Bird-Life in Southern Illinois 195 



(b) Species verging toward extermination. 



Prairie Chicken {Tympanuchus americanus). — Although the present 

 time is well within the second consecutive five-year term of alleged or osten- 

 sible absolute protection by law, this bird is not even common. I was unable 

 to see a single one during many trips to the most likely places during all of my 

 eighteen months sojourn in Richland Country, though told that the species 

 was plentiful in certain localities. During the mating season of 1914, the 

 'booming' of two or three males could be heard each morning at Larchmound, 

 the meadows which they frequented being about a mile to a mile and a half 

 distant. Most certainly, this species does not increase as it should if adequately 

 protected, owing, probably, to surreptitious shooting and destruction of eggs 

 and young by self-hunting dogs. 



Bob-white {Colinus virginianus). — This species is constantly decreasing 

 in numbers, the multitude of gunners afield during the open season being alone 

 sufficient to account for the decrease. 



Upland Plover {Bartramia longicauda). — Once an abundant bird in all 

 the open country, but now very scarce; and its liquid warbling whistle, as it 

 floated or circled overhead^one of the most thrilling of bird-songs — is now 

 rarely heard. 



Ducks, Geese, and other Water Birds. — ^These have all become far less 

 numerous than formerly. During the spring migration of 1913, a solitary 

 Canada Goose (seen flying over on March 16) and less than a dozen Ducks 

 were the sum total of all that were observed; and in the fall of the same year 

 a single flock, composed of approximately equal numbers of the Snow Goose 

 and Blue Goose, were all that were seen. Sandhill and Whooping Cranes and 

 Swans have not been seen for many years. 



Swallow-tailed and Mississippi Kites {Elanoides forficatus and Ictinia 

 niississippiensis) . — The last individuals of the Mississippi Kite seen by me 

 were a pair observed, during the summer of 1910, soaring over Bird Haven; 

 but it has been so long since a Swallow-tail was seen that I cannot remember 

 the year. As late as 187 1 both species were common summer residents, and I 

 have seen more than a hundred of the former and dozens of the latter at one 

 time, as they soared about overhead, watching for and devouring the large 

 cicadas, grasshoppers, and small snakes which (except the last) abounded on 

 the open prairie*. At that time the prairie was wholly uncultivated, while 

 now every acre of it is farmland. 



Pileated Woodpecker {Pheceotomus pileatus). — This conspicuous bird 

 seems to have quite disappeared from all wooded tracts visited by me in Rich- 

 land County; but, during two visits to a remnant of forest along the Little 

 Wabash River, in the northeastern corner of Wayne County, I heard its 

 familiar yelping notes. 



*See 'The Prairie Birds of Southern Illinois,' in American Naturalist, VII, 1873, pp. 195- 

 203. 



