1910 J Bailey, Wild Life of an Alkaline Lake. 423 



When the sky had Hghtened to blue a faint white mist rose 

 over the cold water. On the previous morning the ducks had been 

 seen Kned up along the shore sunning themselves in the first light, 

 but though we hoped they might come again, our brush house 

 prevented. When it was light enough to see the sights of the gun 

 it was time to shoot — alas for the necessity! At the first report 

 the whole lake seemed to rise, and after the last shot not a duck 

 was left, the vast multitudes having crossed over the passes to the 

 main lake. If we would get any more we must follow them. 

 Collecting his few specimens Mr. Bailey climbed a pass while I 

 went down to the shore of the large lake with the rifle to start up 

 the birds again. From a stretch of weedy shore where there was 

 not a duck in sight, at the shot myriads arose. They formed in 

 compact flocks and started off, most of them in their alarm follow- 

 ing down the expanse of the larger lake, a few coming back over 

 the pass. Once at a startling rush of wings I looked up and saw a 

 flock descending with a speed that almost took my breath away. 

 A few moments later there was a sudden whistling overhead and — 

 a band of white forms vanished as they came. Were they Whis- 

 tlers? W'e had added several species and a few desirable specimens 

 to our list by our early rising, but best of all we had shared the 

 beauty and life of the lake at dawn, and now turned homeward 

 with a sense of rare enrichment. 



After our experience with the vast throngs of excitable migrating 

 water-fowl, breaking away with a roar if a crow cawed, rising 

 in thundering multitudes if a gun went off along shore, it was a 

 grateful relief to come back to the tule-bordered lake where the 

 phlegmatic Coots and Ruddy Ducks were at home on their breed- 

 ing grounds, and the tules were full of happy songsters. In the 

 early morning sunshine the chattering, rattling songs of merry 

 Marsh Wrens bubbled over all down the tule line as we passed, a 

 little brown form appearing for a moment in explanation of a shak- 

 ing tule, a white spot at the base of a stalk proving the breast of a 

 watchful wren, or a brown flash from the weeds under our feet 

 telling where a hungry mite was breakfasting — while other 

 brown merrymakers went on gaily scraping their fiddle strings. 

 Glimpses of brown forms a size larger clambering around among 

 the tule stems went with the thin chip of the Lincoln's Sparrow 



