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THE. C91B.R ? Vol. n?e XVII September-October, 191;? M.nsber .? CHARACTERISTIC BIRDS OF THE DAKOTA PRAIRIES I. IN THE OPEN GRASSLAND By FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY HE NORTHERN PACIFIC carried us out across the dead level of the old bed of Lake Agassiz and then up over the North Dakota touteau whose gen- tle moralhal swells were left by the ice sheet. The bigness of the great open prairies slowly sinks into your consciousness as hour after hour you look out upon grain fields interrupted only at long intervals by a farm house, or a way station made conspicuous by tall grain elevators. As we looked from the car windows we eagerly scanned the small sloughs, enticing little Dakota sloughs, small ponds in sa'ucer-like depressions of the prai- rie, around which many of the-prairie birds nest; but though we saw ducks sit- ting on the water and handsome Yellow-headed Blackbirds and fascinating Black Terns flying about, the train passed too rapidly for the recognition of many spe- cies. Beating low over th? fields was one bird whose identity could not be ques- tioned, the Short-cared Owl, a characteristic bird of the prairie region. Of the anomalous day-hunting owls my experience had been limited to the Burrowing. How 1 longed to see flammeus! My first sight of one had been the other side of the Minnesota line when, on a fence post, a tall bird standing half round shoul- deredly peering at us suddenly broke away, flapping off on wide brown wings. What bird-lover does not know the thrill of such a moment ! Here was the Short- cared at last ! An owl with big round head and slowly flapping wings bound not for dense woods but for the big bare prairie; an owl that seems at first blush as much of a target as an eagle flying freely about in the day time, making its nest and rearing its family safely in the open! Eloquent commentary on the great untenanted prairie ! A nest of this Flat-faced Owl, as it is called locally, was later reported to me on one of the big wheat farms bordering Stump Lake. It was said to be "in the