Sele BOON B UE CEN ag 
Bird Haven 
The Lifetime Ideal of Robert Ridgeway, Ornithologist and Botanist 
IXTY years ago in southeastern Illinois a boy, shy and unassum- 
ing, impressed by the wonderful bird life of the region in which he 
lived, began a study of birds, trees, and wild life which has con- 
tinued uninterruptedly, until today Robert Ridgeway is undoubtedly 
the greatest systematic ornithologist in the United States. For fifty 
years Mr. Robert Ridgeway lived in Washington where he has con- 
tinuously worked for the biological societies, studying and writing of the 
marvelous bird life of North America. Every year when possible he spent 
a part of the time at his old home in Richland County where thirty-five 
years ago he began the creation of arboretum and bird sanctuary which 
is known to his friends as Bird Haven. For a number of years Mr. and 
Mrs. Ridgeway lived in Bird Haven. In later years they have occupied 
a home in the outskirts of Olney, comprising eight acres of beautiful 
land which has been planted and arranged for the comfort of the birds 
and the ideal growing of the wonderful plant life of the region. Here 
many birds come that are not found in the northern part of the state 
and the plant life of the north and south meets and grows in almost 









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A Birp ‘Campus’ 
