ON THE MARSHES OF MALHEUR 



J HE sedges were full of birds, the 

 waters were full of birds, the tules 

 were full of birds, the skies were 

 full of birds : avocets, stilts, willets, 

 killdeers, coots, phalaropes, rails, tule 

 wrens, yellow-headed blackbirds, black terns, Fors- 

 ter's terns, Caspian terns, pintail, mallard, cinna- 

 mon teal, canvas-back, redhead and ruddy ducks, 

 Canada geese, night herons, great blue herons, 

 Farallon cormorants, great white pelicans, great 

 glossy ibises, California gulls, eared grebes. West- 

 ern grebes — clouds of them, acres of them, square 

 miles — one hundred and forty-three square miles 

 of them ! 



I was beside myself at the sight — at the sound 

 — at the thought that such wild life could still 

 be anywhere upon the face of the earth, to say 

 nothing of finding it within the borders of my 

 own land. Here was a page out of the early his- 

 tory of our country; no, an actual area of that 



