VIII.— RIVER-BANK AND SWAMP- 

 LAKE. 



" In Spring they lie one broad expanse of green. 



O'er wlaicli the light winds rim with glimmering feet ; 

 Here, yellower stripes track out the creek unseen, 



There, darker growths o'er hidden ditches meet ; 

 And purpler stains show where the blossoms crowd, 

 As if the silent shadow of a cloud 



Hung there becalmed, with the next breath to fleet." 



— LOWEIiL. 



The interested student of bird-life finds few localities 

 which do not furnish him subjects for profitable study and 

 observation. Meadow, woods, and orchard, highway and 

 dooryard, the tangled thicket and the rural hedgerow, all 

 shelter at least a few species worthy the most intimate ac- 

 quaintance of the lover of nature. The bottom lands near 

 the great rivers and their tributaries are the homes of birds 

 almost unknown to the residents of the wide intervening 

 prairies. The summer homes of the water birds are rarely 

 visited except by sportsmen and enthusiastic naturalists, 

 or by boys who seek to supply the demand for the fra- 

 grant lilies which dot the surface of the stagnant water. 

 The certainty of encountering mud and water, and the 

 laborious efforts necessary to push a boat through the 

 tangled reeds and over shallows, or to wade in soft mud 

 among the tall, rank growth, deter many who frequently 

 wish to visit the waterfowl in their breeding resorts. The 

 earnest ornithologist, however, knows that while there 

 are discomforts attending a visit to the swamps, there is 

 ample compensation in the variety of bird-life to be found 

 and studied only under such circumstances. To visit one 

 of these lakes or swamps, bordered with flags growing 

 higher than one's head, and gemmed with snowy lilies ex- 

 panding over their emerald chalices — to push a skiff 



(287' 



