A Two- Year Nesting Record 437 



The land west of the Des Plaines River is mostly prairie, 

 dotted here and there with small lakes, or a small patch of 

 woodland. In this open country are Prairie Chicken, Kill- 

 deer, Black Tern, and many Vesper Sparrows. 



Robins, Bluebirds, Woodpeckers, House Wrens, Brown 

 Thrashers, Catbirds, and Blue Jays can be found anywhere 

 where there is a suitable nesting- site. Meadowlarks, Bobo- 

 links, Song and Field Sparrows are in every field. Cedar 

 Waxwings, Goldfinches, and a few Cuckoos can be found in 

 brushy fields and second growths. At a small lake, Butler's 

 Lake, were found the Yellow-headed^ Blackbird, Coot, Mal- 

 lard, Pied-billed Grebe, and Florida Gallinule. These birds 

 could not be found nesting anywhere else. 



Note: — The numbers at the end of each paragraph repre- 

 sent the number of nests of each variety found, with eggs or 

 young, in the two years. 



1. Pied-billed Grebe (PodilyviMis podiceps), July 2nd, 1915. 

 Nest with seven eggs found at Butler's Lake. Merely a floating 

 mass of decaying reeds. Situated in a thin growth of cat-tails. 2. 



2. Black Tern (HydrocJielidon nigra surinamensis) , July 2nd, 

 1915. Two sets of three eggs found at Butler's Lake. Nests were 

 mats of reeds located among the cat-tails near the shore. The 

 nests were easily found by the actions of the old birds when 

 closely approached. 5. 



3. Mallard {Anas platyrhynchos) , July 2nd, 1915. The only 

 nesting record we have, is a female and ten downy young, seen on 

 a small lake in northwestern Lake County. 



4. American Bittern (Botaurus lentiginosiis) , May 30th, 1914. 

 On this date, a female was flushed from a nest containing four 

 eggs. It was a platform of matted reeds over a foot of water, 

 along the edge of the Skokie Marsh, just west of Highland Park. 4. 



5. Least Bittern (Ixohrychus exilis), July 8th, 1915. Nest and 

 five eggs at Butler's Lake, situated in a bed of dead reeds along 

 the shore. Other nests, found at Beach on June 7th, 1914, with 

 four eggs, and in the Skokie Marsh, on June 13th, 1915, also with 

 four eggs. This bird is not as abundant in the extensive Skokie 

 Marsh as at Beach and Butler's Lake. 12. 



6. Green Heron (Butorides v. virescens) , June 2nd, 1915. Nest 

 at Beach in clump of willow trees. Made enirely of dead willow 

 twigs and contained flve eggs. We have been told that a pair of 



