12 The Mountaineer 
When the rarer and more exquisite flowering plants of a 
given region and their habitat have become known, a great 
service to practical aesthetics and to the enjoyment of future 
generations might be rendered, on the one hand by preventing 
their ruthless destruction and extinction by the thoughtless, 
and on the other by transplanting and spreading them into 
regions where they are not now found. It is to be hoped that 
the time is approaching when every mountain club will have a 
committee, or sub-organization, that shall give particular atten- 
tion to the conservation of our wild flowers. The lasting good 
effect of activity along such lines would soon become apparent 
in our national parks. 
What is true of the flora applies in equal measure to the 
fauna and avifauna. At a little dinner recently, the writer 
heard the distinguished diplomatist and statesman, James 
Bryce, express the opinion that children and young people 
should be taught to take an intelligent and sympathetic interest 
in the lives of our furred and feathered friends of the mountains 
and forests; that in this way the natural instincts of childhood 
ean be turned to account for the conservation of our rapidly 
disappearing wild life. 
Recent investigations have shown that certain birds and 
mammals of the Pacific Coast are disappearing so fast that 
unless something is done at once to check their destruction by 
hunters they will become extinct in a very short time. The 
mourning dove and the band-tailed pigeon, for instance, are so 
reduced in numbers now that they bid fair to follow the pas- 
senger pigeon to extinction. A number of California organiza- 
tions, including the Sierra Club, have by representatives 
organized themselves into a Committee on the Conservation of 
Wild Life. Their endeavor will be to secure immediate legisla- 
tive action in the most urgent cases. It may properly be regarded 
as one of the higher functions of a mountain club to give sup- 
port to such movements, and to encourage and commend such 
rare philanthropic acts as the recent purchase of Marsh Island 
in the Gulf of Mexico, by Mrs. Russell Sage, to be dedicated 
as a guarded refuge for the migratory birds of America. This 
island had long been the most popular haunt of the southern 
market gunner, because shore birds flocked to it by the million 
—only to be slaughtered. 
There remains to be mentioned the recreational use of 
