170 



THE OOLOGIST 



dining room. He is very active in his 

 movements, cheery in his disposition. 

 The first thing in the morning he 

 greets the first riser with a continuous 

 and lengthy volume of Robin conver- 

 sation. He does not appear to be quite 

 as strong or vigorous as a normally 

 colored bird, otherwise I can see no 

 difference whatever except his color. 



I have referred to this bird as "he," 

 but am not certain whether Robin 

 Snow-ball is he or she. 



R. M. Barnes. 

 Lacon. Illinois, Nov. 27, 1922. 



The above was written for and pub- 

 lished by the Illinois Audubon Society 

 in its 1922 annual.— R. M. B. 



BIRDS AMONG THE BUTTES 



P. B. Peabody, Blue Rapids, Kansas 



In The Oologist for December, 1921, 

 I spoke, at some extent, of my many 

 trips to North Dakota in quest of the 

 nests of the Yellow Rail. It may in- 

 terest readers of our indispensable 

 little magazine to learn somewhat as 

 to other birds of high interest with 

 which, during all these years, 1 have 

 become delightedly acquainted. 



One of the chief benefits derivable 

 from repeated visits to a given locality 

 lies in the learning thus made possible 

 of sundry changes in the ornis of that 

 region, during a lapse of years. 



In treating thus the fascinating 

 country that I have come to know and 

 to love so well, it will be wise first to 

 give readers a fair idea of the topo- 

 graphy and the plant-associations in- 

 volved. 



West or the flat Devil's Lake Region 

 of North Dakota, the contour of the 

 land becomes greatly broken. This is 

 particularly true of the Cheyenne 

 Basin. Deep, winding valleys lie be- 

 tween rounded buttes; and these 

 buttes are seamed, in many cases, by 

 sharp ravines that rise from the val- 



leys to the crests of the sills. Natural- 

 ly, morainic conditions maintain, in 

 some of these areas. Boulders, great- 

 er and smaller, scattered or thickly 

 strewn, lie everywhere. And these are 

 the hosts of such lichens as I have 

 never seen anywhere else, lichens 

 gray and lichens brown and lichens 

 sage-green, in tints of infinite varia- 

 tion. The dominant vegetation of the 

 higher levels is of a typically prairie 

 character. Vetches abound ; with puc- 

 coons, pasque-flowers and other bril- 

 liant blooms. The grass is of the pre- 

 vailing type found on the western 

 prairies, a fine-leaved succulent grass, 

 growing hardly over a foot in height; 

 and a very short grass that curls in 

 its drying. This plant-association is 

 the manifest delight of the Manitoba 

 Horned Lark, the Western Vesper 

 Sparrow, the Western Grasshopper 

 Sparrow, the Baird Sparrow, the Lark 

 Bunting, and most abundantly, the 

 Chestnut-collared Longspur. 



In many of the "gorges," or ravines, 

 there grows the "buffalo berry," a 

 wonderful shrub, stunted, always; and 

 often gnarled and writhed by the 

 weight of winter snows. Associated 

 with this is the "buck-bush," a tiny 

 shrub amidst the dense growths of 

 which there love to nest the Short- 

 eared Owl, the Marsh Hawk and sun- 

 dry Ducks. (And one must not over- 

 look, in the category, the Prairie 

 Sharp-tailed Grouse, which is particu- 

 larly associated with this environ). 

 On the margin, also, of the buck-brush 

 areas, nests, rather commonly, the 

 Clay-colored Sparrow. In the choke- 

 cherry brush, of higher lift, mostly in 

 the neighborhood of lakes and lagoons, 

 nest the Eastern Kingbird and the Cat 

 Bird. (Rarely, also, the Alder Fly- 

 catcher pipes, here, his laconic "Pip"). 



Along the Cheyenne Basin once 

 nested fairly innumerable Ducks, with 

 now and then a pair of Canada Geese. 

 Rarest of all, of course, was the Sand- 



