Birds of Prairie Regions ' 5 



NOTES ON BIRDS OF REGIONS WITH PRIMITIVE 

 PRAIRIE CONDITIONS/ 



BY T. L. HANKINSON. 



The birds of the prairies of the Central United States ap- 

 pear to have been given Httle attention with reference to their 

 relations to the conditions that existed in these prairies before 

 they were broken by the plow and before their ponds or 

 sloug-hs were drained. But a few remnants of these old prai- 

 rie features now exist, and these are chiefly along railroads, 

 and streams, in short strips or in small patches, or they are 

 found in small undrained areas in the midst of cultivated 

 fields. These latter are commonly spoken of as prairie ponds 

 or sloughs. It is their bird life that will be treated in this 

 paper. 



Three of these ponds are located in the writer's tramping 

 ground and are within five miles of Charleston, Coles County, 

 Illinois. Another one, near Hillsboro, Montgomery County, 

 Illinois, was visited last May. These four are the only prairie 

 ponds whose bird life the writer has examined. They vary 

 in size from about one to ten acres. All have the following 

 conditions in them : standing water during wet seasons and 

 an almost complete covering of vegetation, usually with a 

 marked zonal arrangement. In each pond there are one or 

 more growths of the willow and cottonwood trees, the lat- 

 ter commonly predominating. The tree growths form centers 

 about which are very distinct zones of thick willow bushes. 

 Outside of these, in the two largest of the four ponds, are 

 irregular and broken zones characterized by rushes (Scirpus 

 rohiistns) and flags (both Acorns and Iris) in separate patches 

 in the zone. The outermost zone of each pond is of thick 

 grass and other low herbage with scattered growths, in some 

 of the larger ponds, of low buttonbushes (Cephalanthus). 

 Four distinct regions can, therefore, be distinguished in these 

 ponds, which are: (1) the cottonwood- willow center, (3) the 

 'Read before the Wilson Ornithological Club, Dec. 29, 1915, Co- 

 lumbus, Ohio. 



