Tre bwe As Us USB ONG BU Evr ep N 11 
Grackles were the commonest bird in Iowa, having greatly increased, 
according to Miss Sherman, in response to the planting of evergreens 
around farm houses. Fewer were seen in the Dakotas. 
As to mourning doves, we recorded the following numbers per 100 miles: 
5 in North Dakota, 15 in South Dakota, 11.3 in Iowa, and 3 in Illinois. It is 
only in Illinois-that doves are shot. Hawks were very scarce except in North 
Dakota and some of these were migrating. Three sparrow hawks were seen 
in Illinois and Iowa, 44 harriers in North Dakota; 6 Swainson’s hawks in 
the Dakotas, 7 ferruginous rough-legs in North Dakota, 3 red-tails in Iowa 
and North Dakota, and 12 unidentified Buteos, one in Illinois, the rest in 
North Dakota. The total by states was: 2 in 159 miles in Illinois, 4 in 564 
miles in Iowa, 2 in 315 miles in South Dakota, and 77 in 800 miles in North 
Dakota. This is one in 60 miles, one in 140 miles, one in 160 miles and one 
in 10 miles, respectively, in the four states; one hawk in 21 miles for 
the whole trip. 
We found prairie in all the states, most of it in North Dakota. We were 
too late for the pasque flower, but too early for the most spectacular dis- 
play of flowers. It was a comfort to find so much unspoiled prairie, pre- 
served in a few cases, vulnerable in most. There should be state and na- 
tional reservations of virgin prairie before it is too late. 
We rejoiced in all the wayside potholes with their fearless ducks, their 
grebes and coots, their phalaropes and blackbirds. But our happiness was 
tinged with foreboding. How long will these fascinating birds be here? 
For the government is paying the farmers to drain their sloughs! 
Incredible as it may seem, the farms are being drained under the direction 
and encouragement of the Soil Conservation Service, aided by subsidies by 
the P.M.A. An expert told us that duck-producing land is being destroyed 
by that branch of the federal government ten times as fast as it is being 
inereased by the Fish and Wildlife Service. 
Many people have the illusion that most of our ducks are produced on 
the big marshes and lakes in the refuges, or in the North Country. Actually, 
most are raised in the prairie pothole country.of the United States and 
Canada, and the farmers are being encouraged to destroy potholes as fast 
as possible. Arthur Hawkins, who flies over Canada to census ducks, told 
us he counted 50 breeding ducks per square mile on an average in Manitoba, 
and only ten in the Arctic. 
It is extraordinary that we should continue to destroy good duck land 
to get more acreage for wheat, which is so abundant we don’t know what to 
do with all we already have. Even the farm magazines are beginning to 
admit that raising wheat is a far more expensive way of producing feed 
for stock than good pasture. 
People seem to have very short memories. One would think that in the 
Dakotas, which are really semi-desert with only fifteen inches of rainfall 
per year, and with the experience of the terrific drought of the thirties, 
