and there appeared bright reaches of water whereon were sailing male Ruddy 

 drakes, their mates the while brooding eggs amid the rushes. A dignified Mallard 

 drake or two, with perhaps a lordly Pintail, might be seen moving about among 

 the smaller fry of water-fowl. 



One must give reasons why this bed of an ancient river should have been 

 chosen as a summer home by that rarest of inland water-birds, the Yellow Rail. 

 The winding coulee, deep-set among the hills, is reached by steep ravines. These 

 are clothed with partridge-berry, rose, willow, aspen, and the silver-leafed buffalo- 

 berry. Rarely on these ravine sides are found huge boulders of yellow sandstone, 

 under the edges of which at times a Turkey Vulture may place her eggs; and 

 often beside them are nests of the Ferruginous Rough-leg. On top of the morainic 

 buttes are scattered granite boulders of varied colors, all enriched by wonderfully 

 varied lichens. Amid all these boulders blossomed vetches, cone-flowers, and 

 puccoons, in glowing tapestries. Here, in this most radiant setting, was the 

 paradisic home of the Yellow Rails. 



Varied was the bird-life of those buttes, ravines, and meadows. A great 

 Pinnated Grouse might, perchance, burst upward from her newly scratched 

 nest among the vetches, hurtling away with a startled, W huck-whuck-whuck. 

 A pair of Marsh Hawks might softly wheel and whirl, the female fretfully iter- 

 ating her imperious Kee-up, kee-up, kee-up, for there were young in a nest some- 

 where below. Meadowlarks and Longspurs were everywhere. One might 

 even catch the far sound of the thin call of some Western Grasshopper Sparrow; 

 or the hoarse, measured Da-a-a-de, da-a-a—de of a Clay-colored Sparrow. From far 

 up and out among the levels came, in mellow cadence, the Zheese-sur-sur-ree-ee-ee 

 or the delightful Tz- heaths- ur-r-r-r of the Baird Sparrow. Anon a shadow of 

 tawny wings might come floating across the meadows, and a cornet-like Dewy- 

 will, dewy-will echoes from a passing Marbled Godwit. Or, maybe, there appears 

 a flashing of white-and-gray wings accompanied by the inspiriting Ter-wheer- 

 wheer-rit of a rollicking Western Willet. 



The faunal conditions in the coulee itself were rarely-fine for the Yellow 

 Rails. Everywhere were wide areas of salt-grass, alive with appetizing snails. 

 There were great expanses of soft, fine grass, unburned and unmown year by 

 year. Better still, as will appear later, there were great expanses of soft, fine 

 grass that were annually mown, leaving in spots just the sort of matted flotsam 

 that the Yellow Rail so dearly loves for its nesting. 



Were space available, one might chronicle here some of the marked 

 faunal changes in that region during the last twenty years. There have been 

 delightful incursions of bird-life : Alder Flycatchers have begun to build in the 

 choke-cherry copses; the Clay-colored Sparrow, no lover of civilization, has 

 become locally common; the Baird Sparrow is increasing; the Lark Bunting, 

 always erratic, seems to be pushing out into new domains. And just once,- in 

 later years, did I discover, one morning, a male Sandhill Crane out on the meadow- 

 margin, with head aslant and body on the qui-vive, watching over his mate, 

 whose nest lay somewhere among the rank herbage in the lagoons. But with 

 the aquatic fowl, there has been sad diminution, due to the barbarousness of 

 pot-hunting in egg-time. Of ducks the Mallard and Blue-winged Teal alone 

 are holding their own. The Wilson Phalarope is lessening. But the Sharp- 

 tailed Grouse (P. catnpestris) still maintains its old-time abundance; as also 

 do the Pinnated Grouse and the Short-eared Owl. Nevada Savannah Sparrows 

 are strangely rare. But among the very shy creatures of that region there is 

 one bird species that still maintains its right of eminent domain over the coarse 

 meadow grass. The Nelson Sparrow still rises out of grassy depths during days 

 of June, hovers long in midair, and utters there its bronchitic Kr-ee-ee-ee-zhl, 

 quite as if the very life were being squeezed out of its ecstatic little body! 



One unusual condition has, I am sure, determined the fitness of the 

 "Big Coulee" as a breeding place for the Yellow Rail. Far up on the top of a 

 butte, rising out of a boggy spring pool, there flows a tiny stream of clear, sweet 

 water. Down the slopes the streamlet flows, now losing itself to view amid 



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