52 
Iowa Ornithologist. 
it races along rapidly over a series of shallows, almost cataracts, and it is such 
places that make the river rather diflacult to navigate in anything but a port¬ 
able canoe. 
* If one ascends one of the eminences he will notice a succession of ridges 
scattered irregularly, and generally separated by some tributary of the Oneota 
river. All these elevations are of about the same height, most of them with 
rounded top and abruptly sloping sides—typical features of a country long sub¬ 
jected to the agents of water and mechanical erosion. Frequently, however, 
tall buttes with rounded tops and steep boulderf covered sides can be seen, sen¬ 
tinels in the centre of the valleys. 
The north-eastern slopes of all these ridges and buttes are covered*by a 
mixed forest composed chiefly of burr oak {Quercus macro car pa, MicJiJC.) 
hickories {Hicoria ovata. Mill. ) Britt, and glabra {Mill. Britt. ) and 
not unfrequently we find white pine {Pinus strohus L.) balsam {Abies 
balsamea Mill.) and Juniper {Juniperu virginiana L.) striving vainly 
for supremacy with the deciduous forest. 
On the slopes bounding the river in Winnesheik Co., and for a little way 
in Allamakee, the white trunks of the Paper Birds {Betula papyrifera 
Marsh. ) vie with the glistening boulders for conspicuousness and it is indeed 
beautiful to see the contrast of the white in the dark deep green of its sur¬ 
rounding. 
The valley still retains some of the old giant patriarchs of the forest as 
man’s axe has spared many, not on account of sentiment or love for the beauti¬ 
ful, for that indeed stands little show when the almighty dollar is the other 
consideration, but rather of their distance from a convenient port or place where 
they might be turned into lumber, the younger timber being more desirable for 
fire wood. 
Giant elms, bass-wood, maples, hickories and oaks form the bulk of the 
timber and occasionally a sycamore stretches its ghostly branches above the 
other vegetation. 
It is in these sylvan dells, where underbrush is scanty, that the Cerulean 
Warbler informs us of his presence, and the soft gradually fading veery-veery- 
veery of the Wilson’s Thrush is offset by the bell-like tones of our woodland 
minstrel the Wood-thrush. The plaintiff note of the Wood-pewee, the chip- 
churrr of the Tanager and the daintily lisped song of the Redstart mingled with 
strophes from the Red-eyed and Warbling Vireo and harsher notes of the 
Flicker and Redhead greet you on all sides. The querulous rise and fall of the 
Blue-winged Yellow Warbler’s song and an occasional chant of the Oven Bird 
not to be forgotten. 
The reedy marshes with their lily covered lakes are choice places for the 
Red-winged Blackbird, Woodcock, Swamp Sparrow, Long-billed Marsh Wren, 
Killdeer and Plover, as well as the ever present Song Sparrow, the saucy 
* View from bluff opposite “The Elephant,” Sect. 32, Twp. 100, N. R. V. 
W., Allamakee county, Iowa. 
t Boulders of disintigration not transportation. - , 
