lene alls OeN sb Ube Me leleNn 9 
of red spruce, remnants of the original native stand of over half a million 
acres, or regenerated trees following cutting. Yellow birches come into old 
spruce growths abundantly. The shrubby understory is not conspicuously 
different from that found in the northern mixed zone just below, but the 
bird life is definitely that of a northern coniferous forest. Our first evening 
in the Cheat range, we drove up the mountainside just at twilight, along a 
wooded road winding through mixed forest, then a fragment of virgin 
spruce where a snowshoe rabbit hopped across the road and was gone, and 
finally into a dense stand of young spruce at the summit. This was 
Gaudineer Knob, 4,445 feet above sea level, a spot accessible but still wild. 
Standing on the balcony of its fire tower we looked down upon a sea of 
unbroken spruce forest, stretching mile after mile in all directions. Near 
us the bubbling music of winter wrens suddenly burst forth, breaking the 
stillness. The plaintive whine of magnolia warblers echoed softly from 
below, and as we looked through the rising dusk in that direction, the 
familiar chirp of a robin fell upon our ears — a wild, shy robin of the 
wilderness. From a distance pealed the flute-like notes of the olive-backed 
thrush, ascending the scale in three’s —- and then, surpassing’ all the others, 
the ethereal song of the hermit thrush, one sustained opening note and a 
series of bell-like trills. This seemed truly like the north woods descended 
on a West Virginia mountain top. 
It was the climax of a trip rapidly nearing its end, and during the 
long journey back to Illinois, I could still close my eyes and hear hermit 
thrushes singing in the northern wilderness. 
Berwyn, Illinois. 
ft ft ft 
Rare and Endangered Species of 
Birds in Northern Illinois 
By MARGARET M. NICE 
THERE ARE TWO chief causes of the striking impoverishment of our avifauna: 
direct persecution by man, and the wholesale destruction of habitats. 
Birds that suffer most from hunting are the ducks, geese and upland 
game birds; in the past this was true also of the shorebirds. Birds that 
suffer from pest-control campaigns are herons, kingfishers, crows, owls, 
and most of all hawks. Since we came here in 1936 we have noticed a 
marked diminution in the number of hawks. 
As to destruction of habitat, this includes drainage, cutting of trees 
and undergrowth, clean farming, and digging out of osage hedges. Much of 
this really constitutes bad farming, as it leads directly to erosion. 
Here lies the great opportunity for educating the public, persuading 
them that Nature knew what she was about with her swamps, prairies, 
weeds and tangles. If they will only leave well enough alone in some places 
and replant in others they will have less trouble with floods and droughts. 
As I have written elsewhere: ‘This world would be a far lovelier and 
more wonderful place to live in if we left some place for the wild creatures, 
