THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 



The Chicago Region 



STUDENTS of geology, botany, and general geography at the 

 University of Chicago and Northwestern University have excep- 

 tional opportunities for field work. The natural forces that 

 carved out the great lakes, that wore down the Des Plaines River, 

 Chicago River, and Salt Creek valleys and their smaller tributary 

 streams, and that left the great marshes bordering on the dune land, 

 the morainic ridges and other evidences of the ice age, built a wonder- 

 fully diversified and fascinating landscape. 



This region, all tributary to Lake Michigan and strongly influenced 

 by its tempering breezes, is called the Chicago Region. It is commonly 

 supposed to include the Lake Shore from the dunes at Michigan City 

 to Waukegan, and inland to include the Valparaiso moraine. Within 

 this area before the coming of the white man and for many years after, 

 there were conditions of forest, stream, lake, pond, marshland, and open 

 prairie that made ideal breeding grounds for myriads of birds. 



It is probable that nowhere in North America were there to be found 

 greater variety or larger numbers of both land birds and waterfowl than 

 on this vast and comparatively level plain. 



North of the region were forests, many lakes, large and small, grassy 

 meadows, and a marvelous system of rivers, tributary to the Mississippi. 



South were the great prairies, the present corn belt, and below the 

 prairies the beginnings of the Ozark Highlands that extend west across 

 Missouri and Arkansas. To realize the multitudes of bird life that 

 formerly visited Illinois, one should read Robert Ridgway's description 

 of the Illinois Prairies as he saw them in 1871. This description is a 

 part of the introduction to Part 1 of Birds of Illinois, published as a 

 State Bulletin in 1889, now out of print. 



While today many of the natural bird sanctuaries no longer exist, 

 having been destroyed by settlement, drainage, and other equally de- 

 structive causes, there are still to be found bits of forest, marsh and 

 dune areas that are visited by birds in considerable numbers each year. 



A few of these "remainders" are peculiarly attractive to certain birds, 

 that have very exclusive tastes in food. The frontispiece of the present 

 number of the Bulletin illustrates a unique example of reforestation in 

 the so-called Waukegan Flats in Lake County, that has not only proved 

 the possibility of introducing a number of varieties of pine trees in the 

 sandy soil of the flats, but has also furnished the coniferous seeds that 

 are the favorite food of a number of northern birds that move south 

 during the autumn and winter seeking new feeding stations. 



Within the memory of many people in Lake County, the flats con- 

 tained a stand of good-sized White Pine trees. These pines furnished 



