Jaa., 1918 A RETURN TO THE DAKOTA LAKE REGION 37 broken tree lines of the lake shores on the horizons, above which the prairie circle of white encompassing clouds closed in, making the Slough a little world apart. The west wind bent down the seeded tops of the brown grass so that it was easy to wade east with their bowed heads giving way before me, but in wad- ing west against the wind I had to force my way through the dense stand, sometimes entangling my feet. 'Wading up and down north and south, how- ever, was comparatively easy. Except in the natural openings, the 0nly way 1 could see the water was by pressing the grass down with my probing stick. One platform and a few suggestions of nests were found in this way, one show- ing prettily how the first stalks are bent down, still attached. With the sun in the west, under water the stalks of the slough grass were golden; and even my brown, bark-covered stick turned to gold. The clear sparkling surface was patterned with intricate reflections of grass stems, and when a surface chink admitted, white cloud masses were hinted in the mirror. What a rare place to live! What a cover! A waving grassy eover, waving and softly seething in the wind. In forcing my way through, no birds were seen, but a sudden splash often told of some one gone before, and in a Coot colony the birds were all around me, some answering my re-tub, te-?u5, while others barked and laughed and coughed as if choking---one choked almost under my hand and another startled one spat out its ?ub almost in my face, while the voices of young added to the
confusion. But only one flash of feathers did I get in this dense protecting
jungle. At one of the openings of a tule bordered pool where there was a warning smell of sulphur, I heard the challenging tip, tip, tip-r'r'r-up of an invisible Ruddy Duck. Other ducks, singly or in pairs occasionally crossed over the Slough, a female Mallard gave her loud quack, or a Barn Swallow cir- cled over the brown sea of grass; while overhead the white clouds encircled this microcosm, a place of abounding life and rare beauty. (To be continued) THE BREEDING BIRDS OF BEXAR COUNTY, TEXAS By ROY W. QUILLIN and RIDLEY HOLLEMAN OR the student of Ornithology, Bexar County is perhaps the most ideally situated of any area of its size in Texas. Being on the dividing line be- tween hills and prairie lands, it contains praetieally all the birds of these two diverse regions. The northwestern and. western portions are rocky hills covered with cedar, small oaks of several species and other trees and shrubs of that category. The various small creeks have cut numerous valleys and ravines in these soft limestone hills, producing many eliffs and ledges. The majority of these are worn until they slope rather brokenly, only the harder strata offer- ing suffieient resistance to the elements to remain abruptly steep. This is espe- cially true of Cibolo Creek, whieh forms the boundary line of the county in this section. The southern portion is more or less sandy, and is covered with mes- quite, cactus and the many varieties of thorny bushes which form the so-called chaparral. The bottom lands of the Medina River, which passes through this
