124 On the trail of vanishing birds 



and brought down two with their shotguns. One adult bird was 

 killed outright, but the young one, still in the buff plumage, was 

 only slightly injured and so was taken home and kept as a pet. 

 It was named "Bill" after a tall, gangly neighbor boy, and be- 

 came a regular member of the family. Bill was so delightful, in 

 fact, that he won over the Olivers completely, and from that time 

 on they never killed another whooping crane. 



More than sixty years later, in 1948, Mr. Oliver by the merest 

 chance picked up a year old copy of Life containing the photo- 

 graphs of whooping cranes and the brief account of their situa- 

 tion mentioned earlier. As he wrote me, "... it stirred up 

 memories that had long lain dormant of my beautiful pet Bill, 

 and it made me feel blue as I read there were only 29 left . . ." 

 So he sat down and wrote a simple and charming narrative of his 

 experience, which was subsequently published in Audubon Maga- 

 zine. The editor sent me the manuscript asking that I read it and 

 return it with my comments. This is what I wrote: 



The story of Bill is a remarkable and touching one. I have 

 watched many "Bills" among the family groups of whooping 

 cranes that spend the winter on Aransas Refuge in Texas and 

 I can vouch for Mr. Oliver's accuracy. The very manner in 

 which he was named, after an awkward and gangling neighbor 

 boy, reveals an intimate knowledge and understanding of the 

 whooper during his first winter. The way Bill had of walking 

 to the sloughs where he fed, instead of flying, is typical of the 

 species. His "talking" notes are those that pass between the 

 members of a wild family. The "dance" that Mr. Oliver tells 

 about Bill and Oliver, Sr., participating describes steps and 

 figures that are in fact the famous and often wrongly described 



dance of the whooping crane I would not quarrel with 



Mr. Oliver's interpretation of Bill's behavior enjoyment, love, 

 thinking may not be the right words technically, but you and 

 I know what is meant and Bill's response to tender care, his 

 complete loss of fear and his obvious attachment to the Oliver 

 "family group" is completely understandable in any terms. It is 

 significant that Bill was killed, quite thoughtlessly and need- 



