THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 



MAP OF 

 OZARK REGK 

 ILLINi 



the wild duck sometimes makes its winter home. The wild turkey was 

 hunted till within the last few years and may not yet be extinct. Only 

 a few years ago I found an old turkey trap in a secluded spot, which 

 would yet be standing if woods fires had not destroyed it. The wild cat 

 is yet found in out of the way places, and occasionally an otter. The 

 ground hog is so common that there is a reward for his scalp in at least one 

 county. Foxes are common in the hill country and are hunted with 

 hounds. 



The distinguishing physical feature of these southern counties is the 

 Ozark hills or mountains stretching across from Grand Tower on the 

 west to near Shawneetown on the east, with the crest in Union, Johnson, 

 Pope, and Hardin counties and the ridge overlapping onto the lower 

 lands of Jackson, Williamson, Saline and Gallatin counties on the north, 

 and onto Alexander, Pulaski, and Massac counties on the south. It is a 

 spur of the Ozarks of Missouri and, after crossing the Ohio, is lost under 

 the coal beds of Kentucky. These are not mere erosion hills such as occur 

 in Pike and Calhoun counties along the western border of the State, but 

 are the remains of an upbended ridge more than twenty miles in width at 

 places. Erosion of this ridge has made it a region of round topped hills 

 having a fairly even sky line. The ascent from the lower lying lands of 

 Saline and Gallatin counties on the north, and from those of Massac and 

 the southern part of Pope counties on the south, is abrupt. An elevation 

 of several hundred feet from the starting place is attained in some localities 

 in a half -hour's climbing. The erosion valleys are so deep and the ridge 

 stands so high above the bordering lands that these hills are locally called 

 mountains. 



The Ohio cuts through the ridge- at the eastern border of Hardin and 

 Pope counties and affords scenery of rare beauty and charm; a fair sized 

 river as it passes historic Shawneetown protected from its might by the 

 levee, it sweeps on past Elizabethtown half asleep in its security, safe and 

 dry but not very high above the river, and on past the lovely little city of 



