lo Birds of Lakeside and Prairie 



Many journeys in fields far from civilization, and holding 

 a dense feathered population, have never succeeded in making 

 me forget the delights and surprises of my first bird-hunting 

 trip in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Although hunting, my only 

 weapon was an opera-glass. I was but a recently added 

 attendant to the bird train, and I was skeptical of songster 

 possibilities in a park skirted with cable-car lines and thronged 

 seven days a week with pleasure-seekers. My companion had 

 hunted these fields aforetime, and said that we surely should 

 see something, though I thought the outlook was as cold as 

 the day, for this bird-seeking trip was made early in March 

 before winter had shown the least disposition to let go his 

 grip. 



As a boy I had gathered some bird-lore in a sort of hap- 

 hazard way, and when on that March morning we neared the 

 edge of the south pond and heard a rattling cry, I exclaimed, 

 "Kingfisher!" as quickly as did my companion. We reached 

 the shore just in time to see a belted kingfisher, the halcyon 

 of the ancients, light on a dead limb of a tree on Willow 

 Island. The pond was ice-bound throughout, and the fish 

 beneath the glittering surface were safe from attack. The 

 wonder was how the kingfisher in this uncongenial clime 

 could escape starvation. The cold March sunlight showed 

 his fine feathers in all their beauty. He had sunk his head 

 well down between his shoulders. It seemed to me that he 

 must be cold, and that he was wishing mightily he could 

 pull his feathered topknot down over his ears like a hood. 

 Once halcyon darted from his perching-place and poised in 

 the air over the ice, as it is his custom to do when about to 

 strike his prey. For a moment I actually feared that the 

 bird was deceived by a bit of transparent ice through which 



