j^ THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 



restive, sportive Mimus, his rival in vigor, and superior in sweetness, of 

 song. Several Yellow-breasted Chats interpolated their loud cat-calls, 

 vehement whistlings, and croaking notes. These three, loudest of the 

 songsters, well nigh drowned the voices of the smaller birds; but in the 

 brief intervals — "between the acts" — were heard the fine and sweet, 

 though plaintive, song of the little Field Sparrow, the pleasant notes of 

 the Chewink, the rich whistlings of the Cardinal, and the clear, proud 

 call of Bob White. Upon proceeding to the thickets and thus inter- 

 rupting the louder songsters, the wondrously strong and vehement 

 notes of the "Chickty-beaver Bird" or White-eyed Vireo greeted us 

 from the tangled copse, and soon a song we had never heard before — 

 the gabbling, sputtering harangue of Bell's Vireo — attracted our atten- 

 tion and, of course, our interest. In the more open woods marking the 

 border of the timber the several woodland species were noticed; there 

 the Vermilion Tanager or Summer Red-bird warbled his Robin-like 

 but fine and well-sustained song, the Blue-jays chuckled and screamed 

 as they prowled among the branches, and gaudy Red-headed Wood- 

 peckers flaunted their tri-colored livery as they sported about the trunks 

 or occasional dead tree-tops. 



On the open prairie, comparative quiet reigned. The most numer- 

 ous bird there was "Dick Cissel" (Spiza americana), who monopo- 

 lized the iron-weeds, uttering his rude but agreeable ditty with such 

 regularity and persistence that the general stillness seemed scarcely 

 broken; hardly less numerous Henslow's Buntings were likewise perched 

 upon the weed-stalks, and their weak but emphatic se-wick sounded 

 almost like a faint attempt at imitation of Dick Cissel 's song. The 

 grasshopper-like wiry trill of the Yellow-winged Sparrow; the meander- 

 ing, wavering warble of the Prairie Lark (Otocoris alpestris praticold) — 

 coming apparently from nowhere, but in reality from a little speck 

 floating far up in the blue sky, — and the sweet "peek — you cant see me" 

 of the Meadow-lark, completed the list of songs heard on the open 

 prairie. Many kinds of birds besides those already described were seen, 

 but to name them all would require too much space. We should not, 

 however, omit to mention the elegant Swallow-tailed Kites, which now 

 and then wheeled into view as they circled over the prairie, or their 

 cousins and companions, the Mississippi Kites, soaring above them 

 through the transparent atmosphere; nor must we forget a pair of 

 croaking ravens who, after circling about for a short time over the 

 border of the woods, flew away to the heavy timber in the Fox River 

 bottoms. 



Early in the following August we paid a second visit to the same 

 spot, and found a material change in its aspect. A season of universal 

 drought having passed, the prairie, which before was comparatively 

 brown and sober in its coloring, was bedecked with flowers of varied 

 hue. The Mocking-birds, Brown Thrashers, Chats, and most of the 



