I 1 6 DuTCHER, Report of Committee on Bird Protection. ^i^"'' 



■^ LJan. 



birds all about me hidden in the tules, startled by the noise of 

 my passage, for I made considerable, floundering waist-deep over 

 and through the mat of fallen tules. 



"I can speak with greater authority on the condition of the birds 

 of Eagle Lake, for I am familiar with it from a six months' stay 

 in the region. 



" I do not think that the number of grebes has been affected 

 seriously, if at all, by the hunters. There were not many birds 

 near the shore, but out from shore half or three-quarters of a mile 

 were numbers of the birds. Several pairs of ducks were seen in 

 shore, and gulls, terns, cormorants, pelicans, and even plover, were 

 abundant. One goose had her brood still with her. 



" The birds out in the lake were, of course, too far away for me 

 to distinguish species ; but frequently birds would swim in shore, 

 in pairs or singly, and these were usually grebes. When I was on 

 the lake in 1899, I rowed out among these birds, and was able to 

 determine that most of them were grebes. 



" So much for the work of the ' professional ' plume hunters. I 

 do not think that their work has had much permanent effect on 

 the birds. The persons who do the most lasting harm are the 

 ranchers in the neighboring mountains and valleys. In July, 1899, 

 I witnessed a sickening slaughter. Three men visited a heronry 

 of Great Blue Herons, in which the young birds were about two- 

 thirds grown. With rifles they shot every heron, young and old, 

 that they could see, killing forty or fifty in all. Earlier in the 

 season they had visited a breeding ground of gulls, pelicans, and 

 cormorants, and had broken every ^gg they could find. The 

 reasons'given for this slaughter is that the birds are killing off the 

 fish from the lake, and that they are of no use in the world." 



Mr. Willard adds, in a subsequent letter, that he is heartily in 

 sympathy with the movement for the passage of good bird laws 

 in the Pacific Coast States, where they are badly needed. 



Auduboji Work. — The Audubon Society is merely a local one 

 at Redlands and is not doing any active State work. 



The Cooper Club should take the matter of a good bird law in 

 hand at once, and should also foster and encourage the Audubon 

 movement in California. 



