IV 



A PARADISE OF BIRDS 



Bird Favorites The Prairie Chickens Water-Fowl 

 A Loon on the Defensive Passenger Pigeons. 



THE Wisconsin oak openings were a 

 summer paradise for song birds, and 

 a fine place to get acquainted with 

 them ; for the trees stood wide apart, allowing 

 one to see the happy homeseekers as they ar- 

 rived in the spring, their mating, nest-build- 

 ing, the brooding and feeding of the young, and, 

 after they were full-fledged and strong, to see 

 all the families of the neighborhood gather- 

 ing and getting ready to leave in the fall. 

 Excepting the geese and ducks and pigeons 

 nearly all our summer birds arrived singly or in 

 small draggled flocks, but when frost and fall- 

 ing leaves brought their winter homes to mind 

 they assembled in large flocks on dead or leafless 

 trees by the side of a meadow or field, perhaps 

 [ i37 1 



