THE MUSEUM. 



167 



several small inland lakes and ponds 

 with the lands between them covered 

 with flags and rushes, the whole cov- 

 ering several miles in area. We came 

 at last upon the nest and found the 

 mother bird just making the slide and 

 had I not wished to secure a clutch of 

 her identical eggs 1 could easily have 

 shot her, however we let her pass and 

 made straight for the nest and I found 

 that she had laid one egg. I made 

 notes on the nest and found that it 

 was most beautifully built out of flags 

 and rushes, partly on land and partly 

 on the water, the nest proper being 

 about 3.J feet in diameter and nearly 

 one and one half feet high and being 

 built up over one foot or more from 

 the water. Upon my friend's promise 

 to send me word when the full clutch 

 was in the nest I left for home. 



In a very short time my friend, ac- 

 cording to his promise, informed me 

 that it was time to visit him again, 

 and now knowing what I would need 

 in the way of tools equipped myself 

 with a sod cutter and hay knife to cut 

 the tough marsh grass roots and found 

 these tools very useful indeed. I met 

 my friend as soon as I could after my 

 start and immediately set out for the 

 nest in a small flat bottom boat. Ar- 

 riving near the nest the mother bird 

 made the slide into the water and fin- 

 ally took wing and quickly disappear- 

 ed from sight. Coming upon the nest 

 I found two eggs which were taken 

 and made secure and quickly placed 

 two turkey's eggs instead and then 

 placed three common new home steel 

 traps about the nest and secured them 

 or at least two of them. One being 

 far from the nest in the water was not 

 securely fastened as we afterward 

 learned to our disappointment. We 

 next left the nest and went under cov- 

 er at a reasonable distance from it to 

 await developments. 



In about three hours she came and 



went straight to the nest. We kept 



close watch and not hearing any noise 



or seeing anything, concluded we were 



.successful m the capture. We had 



started for the nest when we saw her 

 rising at intervals near the vicinity of 

 the nest but soon saw her no more 

 and were puzzled upon coming near 

 the nest to find her gone. We soon 

 discovered that one of the traps was 

 not properly fastened, and that this 

 was the only one sprung and that she 

 must have it upon her leg. We also 

 found that she had rolled the turkey 

 eggs out of the nest, apparently in a 

 rough manner. 



A search revealed to us that she 

 was somewhere in the rushes and flags 

 but as night was nearly upon us there 

 was little hope of securing her; how- 

 ever we set out and after fully one 

 hour's work came upon her with the 

 trap attached to the left leg. She 

 showed fight and it was only after 

 quite a little exertion that we were 

 able to subdue her. 



The next day by hard work we de- 

 tached the nest and thus secured bird, 

 nest and eggs at last. 



Fernand. 



The Cliff Dwellings 



A Night Amid the Homes of an Un- 

 written Race. 



Of all Arizonia's vast treasure house 

 of wonders probably the most interest- 

 ing contribution are the ancient cliff 

 dwellings, whose rockbound walls, 

 voiceless and hushed through all the 

 resistless flood of years, still offer mute 

 and melancholy testimony of the exist- 

 ence of the strange people that dwelt 

 in them before American history be- 

 gins. They will ever be a source of 

 wonder and never-failing interest to 

 the sight-seer, who finds his imagina- 

 tion slipping back through the centur- 

 ies in his contemplation of them, and 

 the antiquarian and archa.logist have 

 found them a profitable field of re- 

 search and speculation. 



The cliff dwellings in Walnut Can- 

 yon, nine miles southeast of Flagstaff, 

 form one of the rare scienic entice- 

 ments of that corner of wonderland. 

 A delightful drive through a park-like 



