VOL. 111] Miscellany. 377 
NOTES ON GAME LAWS, ETC. 
Notwithstanding the rain and cold weather of this year Mr.W. O. 
Emerson reports that Anna humming birds have commenced build- 
ing in the eucalyptus trees near his house. 
The earliest record of the nesting of this species near San Fran- 
cisco was made by Mr. Ingersoll, who found a nest with two far ad- 
vanced eggs on January 14; the winter was a more open one than 
the present. . ae ee 
By the first of March half a dozen or more resident species will 
have commenced nest building, and the small boy will prepare a box 
of bran to receive the ‘‘collection” which he makes annually, and 
which is annually destroyed by mice or otherwise. Such pernicious 
collecting should be discouraged by parents, and might profitably 
receive some attention from the would-be makers of perfect game 
laws for California. 
Some radical changes are contemplated when the next legislative 
‘‘tinkering of the game laws’’ takes place. Like most proposed 
alterations of the kind there are some good and some injurious. To 
provide an open season in California for elk, antelope, and mountain 
sheep is to assist in their total extermination in this State; too many 
are killed in defiance of the law as itis. The fault is not so much 
with the law as with the lax enforcement and a deplorable lack of re- 
spect for game laws by the public. 
Elk are not rare in some places in Southwestern Oregon, and the 
theory that persecution in that State has resulted in an immigration 
of élk to California is extremely probable, but no one need suppose 
that they are spared to any great extent after crossing the boundary 
line. The law stops the marketing of elk, and in some instances de- 
ters parties from hunting for them, but not always.. It is not many 
months since a large expedition, thoroughly equipped, left San 
Francisco for Northern California, and it was no secret that they 
were prepared for illegal game. 
Every little while some one comes forward with schemes of 
birds, and fish, without a 
restocking the State with mammals, c 
thought of what the possible results may be from the introduction of 
exotic species. There can be no question as to the desirability of at 
some time introducing new game, but that time will be after the na- 
