Page:Condor18(1).djvu/15

 14 THE CONDOR Vol. XVIII with the fact that many details which I have given are new to most of those here present, must be my excuse. In closing let us name over once more these sturdy pioneers who each in his way did what he could for the advancement of western ornithology: Lewis and Clarke, Townsend and. Nuttall, Peale and Say, Gambel, Bell, and Heer- mann. Others equally worthy followed after, but they belong to another chap- ter. When we think of these men, the results they achieved, and the difficulties amid which they labored, and realize that we are following in their footsteps, striving to uphold and carry on the great work which they established on firm foundations, we recall the closing words of the beautiful tribute of Dr. Coues to the memory of John Cassin. "A higher trust than we perhaps appreciate is laid upon the few of us of this later day who pay devotion to the beautiful study of ornithology. It is no less than the keeping bright and untarnished, and transmitting to our successors, the name and fame of the science that ab- sorbed such minds as these. May we prove worthy servitors, guarding with jealous care our trust, watchful that the vestal fires shall ever burn at the shrine we worship with a clear and steady flame." CHARACTERISTIC BIRDS OF THE DAKOTA PRAIRIES IlL AMONG THE SLOUGHS AND MARSHES By FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY O ME THE MOST interesting prairie birds were water birds. Their abundance is easily explained geologically, for where there are no high mountains to drain off the water, and the highest mountains in North Dakota are merely piles of glacial drift, then whatever water falls must lie in the surface depressions. Owing to the plowing of the ice sheet and the great number of moraines these depressions are numerous on the prairie, producing sloughs of various sizes, and marshes and lakes that afford ideal breeding grounds for water fowl. Would that every bird student could visit them and bring back intimate studies of the birds on their own home grounds! But though few are vouehsafed unconditioned days of field work, the least fortun- ate sojourners in North Dakota will find much to enjoy. A surprising variety of water birds are seen even on the shallowest hol- lows of the prairie. Some of these small sloughs that would be called tanks farther west are not much larger than the buffalo wallows left since the days when fresh buffalo trails crossed the prairie to water. Two small roadside sloughs were near my part of Stump Lake. On one of them, the Rural Route mail carrier told me, a pair of strange birds were to be seen; one was almost alwgys there when he passed along his route. When I drove over the prairie to investigate, there on the edge of the slough stood a Black-crowned Night Heron in its calm judicial pose, its black back contrasting strikingly' with its broad ashy wings. Seeing that it was observed it rose and flew away across the prairie in the direction of a clump of trees on the shore. At the nearest house the people told me that the Herons had been in the neighborhood for several years and that they seemed to divide their time between the small slough and a larger one down the lake.