168 Grebes. 



to their undoing. The hunter has simply to conceal himself 

 andi his boat in a clump of tules, throw out a wooden decoy 

 duck and grebe after grebe will come up to inspect it. They 

 are shot through the head, death of course being instantaneous, 

 and the skin undamaged. In preparing the pelts for market 

 the' Vings and legs are chopped off, an incision is made in 

 the back from the head to the tail, when the skin is easily 

 removed. This is then tacked on boards, sprinkled with a 

 little plaster of Paris, to absorb the grease and allowed to 

 dry. They fetch from 2s. to 3s. each on the San I'^rancisco 

 market, iand at the beginning of the season while the birds 

 are numerous, one man will kill and cure about eighty skins 

 a day netting from G8 to £10 a day. I estimate that in 

 three weeks from 12,000 to 14,000 birds were killed on this 

 lake alone. 



I remember securing one specimen that was covered 

 entirely with thick down, having, as far as I can reccllect, no 

 feathers on any part of its body. It made a lovely pelt. 

 Another that I killed had the fangs of a large rattlesnake 

 embedded an the fat beneath its skin. This was in 1906. 

 Of late yeans I hav<5 not noticed any grebe in the furriers' 

 shops so that I ^hope the birds have now had a long rest. 



Bird Catching in India. 



By Douglas Dewar, F.Z.S., I.C.S. 

 {Continued from page 141). 



We have already noticed one m.tiiod of securing 

 Peafowl. Another is by means of tish-hooks baited with friiit 

 and attached to a long string. Numbers of these baited hooks 

 are thrown about where Peafowl come to feed. The fruit is 

 eagerly gobbled up, atid the hook sticks in the gizzard of the 

 peafowl, land then to secure the luckless bird is easy work. 



In the United Provinces large (numbers of cattle egrets 

 are caught shortly before the breeding season and denuded 

 of their nuptial plumes which constitute the "buff ospreys " 

 of commerce. 



Notwithstanding the Government of India notification 



