24 THE AUDUBON 3B WEL Egg 

Annual Outing of the Audubon 
Society, May 16 
HE region visited last year, our first outing, was so attractive that 
many requested that the 1925 outing should be held at the same 
place, the Portage Tract of the Cook County Forest Preserve. 
One hundred and fifty reservations proved the popularity of the ex- 
cursion, and special cars on the Burlington were arranged for, but, ““The 
Next Day It Rained.” So in place of 150 only 55 came to the place of 
meeting, and then the party had to stay under shelter at the Riverside 
depot until a last heavy rain added to the moisture underfoot and the 
drops from trees overhead. 
It had been cold until Thursday, May 14th, then on a warm wave the 
warblers arrived in myriads. So plentiful were they that it was difficult 
to get the party to really start for the woodland where the final checking 
up was to occur. : 
The rain, however, actually added much to the pleasure of the party, 
as the warblers remained closer to the ground and were much more easily 
identified. A word about the region visited may be of interest to those 
who could not attend. 
Starting from the “Q”’ depot in Riverside the route followed the east 
bank of the Des Plaines River which is heavily timbered all the way to 
Ogden Avenue, not forest growth, but an artistic planting making an 
ideal river bank tree growth. Crossing Ogden Avenue and passing a dis- 
figuring roadhouse and other unsightly buildings, among a growth of 
naturally planted trees, a wide open space in the Forest Preserve was 
crossed, dotted with here and there a venerable and ancient burr oak 
tree. Next came growths of native hawthorn—Crataegus—and wild crab- 
apple, malus, leading to an old dike or embankment, built to keep the 
Des Plaines River from “running away” during spring freshets and seek- 
ing the gulf of St. Lawrence through the great lakes in place of following 
its proper course down through the Illinois river to the Gulf of Mexico. 
East of the dike was Mud Lake a remnant of an old pond now gradually 
filling up; beyond this was the old Ogden ditch, formerly used to drain 
off the accumulated waters 1n Mud Lake. 
Here, in the days of Champlain and Joliet nearly 250 years ago, the 
French Voyageurs crossed over from the headwaters of the south branch 
of the Chicago River into the Desplaines during stages of high water 
and thence went down to Fort St. Louis, now Starved Rock. 
Conditions were ideal for birds of many kinds, and surely enough se 
were in evidence; shore birds, swimmers, flycatchers, redwings, a green 
