BIRD NEWS 



go out some bright morning and find 

 a big gopiier-snake, one of the harm- 

 less!?) kind, up in the nest looking 

 like a miniature boa constrictor and 

 when j^ou kill him, as you lose no 

 time in doing, and cut him open, you 

 find several whole eggs and a lot 

 of broken ones in his "little insides," 

 it is then one doesn't love all nature, 

 and one wonders why on earth such 

 things live. 



We have tried several times to 

 stock this part of our state with 

 hardy pheasants and Bob White quail. 

 The ring-necks hung around the 

 home place, finally layed nine eggs 

 in a hay stack and then disappeared. 

 The silvers did not do as well. We 

 turned out a number of pairs of Bob 

 Whites, months after while driving 

 through a canyon, I thought I heard 

 a "bob-bob-white," but I am not at 

 all sure that may imaginations did 

 not play me a trick, particularly as 

 no one else has ever mentioned either 

 seeing or hearing them. I fear we 

 can never successfully introduce them 

 here, we have too many coyotes and 

 wild cats. The California quail roosts 

 on trees and bushes, nature having 

 taught them the dangers lurking on 

 the ground. 



I have often pictured to my mind 

 the probable tragedy of our little 

 covey of Bob Whites, huddled to- 

 gether, heads out, as is their custom, 

 under some bush, secure in their in- 

 nocence as the rested on the warm 

 bosom of Mother Earth, fast asleep 

 with only a little cheep now and then 

 from one of the restless ones, sud- 

 denly a spring, one, perhaps two wild 

 cries and the little band, less in num- 

 ber is scattered, only a few feathers 

 left to tell the story. Night after 

 night this is repeated until all are 

 gone. A law of nature? Yes, but 

 a sad, cruel law that something must 

 always die that something else may 

 live. 



PROTECTION OF BIRDS IN JAPAN. 



For many years, foreign writers 

 have warned the Japanese Govern- 

 ment that it was time to take some 

 steps to prohibit the great destruc- 

 tion of the native birds. Owing to 

 the protection afforded song and 

 plumage birds by other nations, 

 feather merchants were driven to 

 distant lands to obtain a supply. 



Japan offered a favorable hunting 

 ground, with the result that millions 

 of skins were exported from Kobe 

 and Yokohama, including small birds 

 and pheasants. The alarming in- 

 crease of insect pests, have at last 

 compelled the Japanese Government 

 to issue a mandate prohibiting the 

 sale and slaughter of native birds. 

 It is interesting to note that it is not 

 the bird lover, nor the ornithologist, 

 but the fashion maker and the gen- 

 tler sex, who are the guilty ones in 

 bird destruction. The student and 

 the fancier have to suffer the de- 

 privation of securing specimens sim- 

 ply because commercial greed, know- 

 ing neither law nor science, places a 

 value upon the birds — and their 

 slaughter even to extermination is 

 the result. 



The recent visit of Japanese train- 

 ing ships to the harbor of San Fran- 

 cisco, recalls an experience, which in 

 more acute times, might easily have 

 become an international affair. A 

 party of Japanese recently slaugh- 

 tered more than 300,000 birds on 

 an island belonging to the United 

 States in mid-Pacific. U. S. oflJicials 

 left Honolulu to protest against this 

 destruction and on arrival at the is- 

 land, found no less than 335 cases 

 of plumage, all destined — for ladies' 

 use. We trust Japan will "protect us" 

 against such pirates as these. The 

 plumes of 115,000 of nesting herons 

 were recently shipped to order. 

 Note: — Nesting birds were killed. 

 This infamous barbarity is akin to 

 the horrors of the Apache trail. 



