THE BIG COULEE 

 YELLOW RAIL GROUND AT PLEASANT LAKE 



lush grasses, and, again, pouring itself with noisy babbling over some buried 

 boulder. Across the reach of narrow, coarse-grass meadow it quietly flows 

 among the cowslips and sedges. Onward it meanders into the coulee; here it 

 enlarges by intake; then spreads wideningly and sluggishly into the broader 

 expanses. Now there appears a stretch or two of clean sand amid the alluvial 

 muck. Onward, at last, the stiller waters flow, out into one of the lagoons. 

 No one element of that wonderful coulee is more delightsome than this little 

 stream of clear, cool water. And right here, throughout many of the years of 

 my observation, has been the focal point of the nesting domain of the Yellow 

 Rail in that famous Coulee. Nowhere else in all that region, during many 

 years, was the Yellow Rail every found. 



One may well contrast this coulee with another breeding ground, some 

 fifty miles to the north. A meandering lake lies deep among the hills. One 

 approaches the place across great stretches of field, prairie, and upland meadow. 

 As the train strikes the down grade, great masses of tree verdure burst into 

 view. Far down to the very water level grows the heavy timber, skirted by a 

 wealth of swamp plant life. Amid the lowest bogs of this swamp there still 

 appear the bones of bison, bespeaking former slaughter of the artless creatures 

 by Indians as the beasts came down to drink. Most interestingly did one find, 

 in this remote bird paradise, marked compressions of bird-life: Kingbirds, 

 both tyrannis and verticalis, were found, with Yellow Warblers, Redstarts, and 



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