8 THE ALU DUB ON BU LD ieee 
raised or not. They seemed to have disappeared quite early in the fall. 
Will they return this spring? 
One day this year, since the storm, we walked to the cemetery but saw 
nothing except some starlings and two hawks that flew directly into the 
sun, which gave us no hope of identifying them. We could walk only in 
the road as in many places the drifts were several feet deep. The road had 
been shoveled out and the snow on each side was piled as high as our heads. 
CHICAGO ACADEMY OF SCIENCES PHOTO 
Young mockingbirds in nest 
We have heard reports of flocks of pheasants with at least a hundred 
birds in them feeding where the farmers were spreading fertilizer on their 
fields. We have seen only one lone pheasant, and this was a hen in our 
own back yard, crouched under a lilac bush. How we would have liked 
feeding her, but she soon disappeared. When we saw her the snow com- 
pletely covered the ground. 
We wonder whether our flock of prairie chickens lived through the 
storm. We haven’t been out to look for them, because we must save our 
tires for business, which does not happen to be one of those businesses 
listed as eligible for tires. With so many thousands of men dying in this 
world, I wonder if we are justified in thinking about the birds. I wonder. 
I wonder. 
Durand, Illinois. 
