34 



Bird - Lore 



Where the Grebe Skins Come From. 



By Vernon Baii.ev, Biological Survey, Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. 



In a Washington street car the other 

 day I counted thirteen Grebe skins on 

 women's hats, and I am sure Washing- 

 ton women are no more partial to these 

 ornaments than the women of other 

 cities across the whole breadth of the 

 continent, The beautiful, silvery skins 

 with rich brown borders are becoming 

 so fashionable and being worn by so 

 many thousand women, that the ques- 

 tion arises. Where do they come from ? 



Last summer my work took me among 

 the Grebe hunters of the lake region of 

 eastern California and Oregon. In this 

 half desert region of scattered stock 

 ranches, where great, shallow, alkaline 

 lakes with wide borders of tules fill the 

 bottoms of the valleys and the country 

 seems fitted especially to be a home for 

 wild things, vast numbers of Grebes have 

 for centuries built their nests and raised 

 their young. Their only enemies were 

 the mink, otter and other wild foes that 

 experience had taught them to cope 

 with. Even the Indians left them unmo- 

 lested, preferring Ducks and their eggs 

 as food, so the Grebes were secure in 

 their homes until fashion claimed them. 



Over most of the country the Grebes 

 are known only as migrants, when they are 

 so wary and so expert in diving that 

 they are well prepared to take care of 

 themselves. But on the breeding grounds 

 all is different. As I waded among the 

 tules in the shallow margins of Tule 

 lake, California, last summer, the Grebes 

 followed close after me or, diving, came 

 up again only a few feet away, cackling 

 and scolding, as they tried to drive or 

 coax me away from their island nests, 

 which were floating among the tules, 

 boldly offering their lives for the safety 

 of their homes. Often as I stopped to 

 examine the hastily covered eggs in the 

 damp cup of the floating nest, the old 

 birds would rise noiselessly from beneath 



the water by the side of the nest 

 and sit motionlesss on the surface, 

 watching me with their bright red eyes 

 full of anxiety. Or, as I surprised a 

 brood of little black, downy chicks 

 among the tules one of the parent birds 

 would swim fearlessly up to me to at- 

 tract my attention, while the other hur- 

 ried the chicks out of sight into the tules 

 or swam rapidly, with them clinging to 

 her feathers, out into deep water. The 

 three species of Grebes breeding here, 

 the Western, the Eared, and the Dab- 

 chick, though belonging to different gen- 

 era, are similar in habits. They are 

 miniature Loons, graceful, soft-tinted, 

 silvery breasted water sylphs, fitted only 

 for inhabiting the water or the air. 

 Harmless, beautiful, defenceless, they 

 fill the place among birds which the fur 

 seals do among mammals, and their 

 doom seems as sure and as sad. 



While among the nests watching the 

 brave, beautiful little' people building and 

 guarding their homes and caring for their 

 young, I could hear the guns of the skin 

 hunters along the shore of the lake all day, 

 and I was told that from early spring till 

 the lakes freeze in fall the destruction 

 goes on, though most successfully during 

 the breeding season. The birds are shot, 

 the skins of the breasts are stripped off, 

 dried flat and packed in gunny sacks. 

 They bring the hunters 20 cents each, and 

 I was told that several thousand were 

 shipped from Klamath Falls every week 

 through the summer, and that the hunters 

 often make twenty or thirty dollars a day. 



Shall we appeal to these rough, untaught 

 men to desist — to give up the rich harvest 

 they are reaping ? It would be as useless 

 as to appeal to the unthinking women who 

 decorate themselves with the innocent 

 breasts. The state laws do not protect 

 these birds, because they are not consid- 

 ered game. A few years more and there 

 will be no need of protecting them ; they 

 will be where the Egrets, the Pigeons and 

 the Buffalo are — in our memories. 



