8 THEVA UDO BO NSB UNS iim 
river, a slender ribbon streaming southward. Within two hours that 
morning, more than six hundred geese passed, all of these two kinds. 
But every story has an ending. With the coming of the chill No- 
vember rains, arrived also the first straggling flocks of winter ducks— 
last episode of the bird year. “Never mind,” we told each other, “per- 
haps there will be snowy owls again this year; and finally spring will 
come again.” 
Alas for our hopes! With November, too, we watched the inva- 
sion of our homely weed patch by a caravan of trucks, bearing an 
army of W. P. A. men;—they were going to push through another 
road, and add a new section to the Park. Long delayed, this seemed to 
be the last chapter. 
So with a regret we watch the passing of our last bit of real 
shore, just as we have many another bird wonderland, conscious of our 
great incapacity to prevent it. “Must it be?” we ask ourselves; “Do 
the bathers and picknickers need this bit of shore more than the birds? 
Cannot both use it at the same time?” And a very small voice, speak- 
ing with conviction, answers in spite of us, “No.” 
But the impulse that stirs the birds in their endless migration is 
very old, and may not be easily affected by the passing of another 
beach, however ideal. Within a century our front yard has completely 
altered—yet the birds continue to use it, even perching occasionally 
atop the loop buildings. And it is likely—with few exceptions—that 
all species formerly recorded from the shore, still occur today with 
some regularity, if we can match it with the regularity of our too 
casual observation. 
When all is said it is we who must be affected most, when the 
rare species no longer find congenial to a little stop-over, enroute. Our 
knowledge of how it fares with these birds and of their relative abun- 
dance will be less; our notes will eventually cease to embrace them. . . 
Interesting Records Obtained Near 
Park Ridge, Illinois 
In hikes taken during the past five years along the Des Plaines 
River near the dam at Devon Avenue and over the adjacent country 
several interesting records have been obtained, interesting in that they 
represent the occurrence of uncommon species or of irregular visitants 
which have passed through the area. Perhaps the inclusion of some 
of the following species in either of these two categories may be ques- 
tioned but at least so far as observations made on that restricted area 
indicate, they fall into one of the two classes named. All, unless other- 
wise noted, are sight records. The writer is indebted to Aulden Coble 
and Frank Wadsworth for some of the records which have been used 
in this compilation. 
