44 T AEA Db GOING: BUC Der igi 

cotton string tied to horsehair were all that remained of the nest. The 
mother bird stayed around for a day or two—then she left. 
A block west of the cottonwoods there is a depression between the 
sidewalks, on which the wet weather formed a long, shallow pool. Here 
I found sandpipers and plover, picking their way and teetering along its 
margins. One morning a pair of yellowlegs had joined them. (Walking 
on a high sidewalk, so that one’s approach may be detected half a 
mile away, is a strange method of observing birds.) They flew off 
and alighted in another swamp, not far distant. These birds are the 
refined comics of spring—I take it. They never fail to put me in a 
jovial disposition. 
One morning I arose early enough to see the bitterns take their flight 
eastward. There was a dull overcast sky and a high wind blowing from 
the west. Conditions had changed greatly in the prairie marsh during 
the weeks of our acquaintance—and this morning as I watched them I 
thought that they were leaving us for good. True enough, from that day 
forward I saw them no more. Nor did I see the sora or the yellowlegs 
again. A long drought set in, the sandpiper pool dried up, the earth be- 
came hard and cracked over the whole prairie. The persistent sultry 
call of the dickcissel might be heard everywhere across the fields: chu chu, 
chee chee chee-ee. The mahogany back of the male is rather striking in 
bird coloring. There was one pair in which I was particularly interested. 
They were always to be found in the vicinity of a stone pile in the weeds 
just beyond the end of a sidewalk. I suspected that they might be nest- 
ing, as they showed some anxiety on my first few visits. This pair were 
early arrivals and stayed late. 
The meadowlarks’ song from the prairie reaching almost to our back 
door enhanced our breakfast hour. They remained abundant, in spite 
of a large black cat who constantly roamed the fields. Perhaps this 
raider accounted for a few bobolinks, as well. As for the sparrow popula- 
tion, the chippies were few, the vesper fairly common, and the song 
sparrow delightfully in evidence from the first day of our arrival. The 
swamp sparrow I saw only once—during the wet season. 
To return to the park: the view opposite our windows was particularly 
full of interest. One cold June day I watched the sparrows clinging to the 
nearly perpendicular side of a park sign. The indigo buntings on this 
same day were not able to content themselves so easily, but spent the time 
flying distractedly from one bush to another. Over the signboard was a 
robin’s nest which the children liked to watch. (One of the pair of robins 
seemed to be greatly concerned over the evening tennis matches, and 
would never leave the ground for her nest until the nets were folded.) 
On a high bush, a few feet within, the goldfinches built and reared a 
family. The last day of July the fussing and chattering of the robins led 
to my discovery of four kingbird fledglings. I had often seen the king- 
birds 1n pursuit of the yellow-billed cuckoo, who could be seen almost 
