A North Dakota Slough
BY A, C. BENT
win. Photographs from Nature by the Author
EATED in a comfortable buckboard, with two congenial companions, S and drawn by a lively pair of unshod bronchus, we had driven for many a mile across the wild, rolling wastes of the boundless prairies, with not even a tree or a rock in sight, unconfined by fences or roads, and with nothing to guide us but the narrow wagon ruts which marked the section lines and served as the only highways. It was a bright, warm day in June, and way off on the horizon we could see spread out before us what appeared to be a great, marshy lake; but it seemed to fade still farther away as we drove on, and our guide explained to us that it was only a mirage, which is of common occurrence there, and that we should not see the slough we were heading for until we were right upon it.
We came at last to a depression in the prairie, marked by a steep em- bankment, and there, ten feet below the level of the prairie. lay the great slough spread out before us. Flocks of Ducks. Mallards, Pintails, and Shovellers, rose from its surface when we appeared. and in the open water in the center of the slough, we could, with the aid of a glass, identify Redheads, Canvashacks and Ruddy Ducks, swimming about in scattered flocks, the white backs of the Canvashacks glistening in the sunlight, and the sprightly upturned tails of the Ruddies serving to mark them well. A cloud of Blackhirds, Yellowheads and Redwings, arose from the reedy edges of the slough, hundreds of Coots were scurrying in and out among the reeds, a few Ring-billed Gulls, and a lot of Black Terns were hovering overhead, and around the shores were numerous Killdeers. Wilson’s Phala- ropes and other shore birds. The scene was full of life and animation, stirring the enthusiasm of the ornithologist to the highest pitch, and we lost no time in pickcting our horses and preparing for a closer acquaintance with the inhabitants of such a bird paradiset
Numerous great Nlarbled Godwits and Western Willets were flying about the marshy outskirts of the slough, acting as if they had nests in the vicinity, which, however, we were unable to locate.
The beautiful and graceful little Wilson's Phalaropes were very tame, flitting about daintin among the grassy tussocks, where their nests were well concealed in the thick grass. Killdeers were flying about us, hold and vociferous, protesting at our intrusion with their plaintive cries, "Look here. look here!" they would seem to say, but their spotted eggs were hard to find, even on the bare, open shores where they nested,
Soras and Virginia Rails were nesting in the shallow water among the short grass on the edge of the slough. The Virginias‘ nests were very
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