State Reports 



339 



island, about half an acre in extent, we counted over sixty nests containing 

 eggs. There were perhaps three thousand five hundred nests about that 

 locality. The Cormorants were all hatched and grown; about one thousand 

 five hundred were swimming about in the water. The Pelican rookeries 

 were scattered along for about 

 two miles. There were eight 

 or ten, each containing from 

 four to six hundred birds, then 

 there were twelve or fifteen 

 that had all the way from fifty 

 to two hundred birds, besides 

 a number of smaller ones. 



"I should have said before 

 that these colonies are situated 

 miles out from the main shore 

 of the lake. All the interven- 

 ing space is covered by the 

 rankest growth of tules, 

 through which run innumer- 

 able little channels, cutting 

 up the whole into hundreds of 

 islands. These flat, floating 

 tule islands are the nesting 

 places of the birds. Most of 

 these are buoyant enough to 

 hold a man; in fact, they 

 were the only camping spots 

 we had all the time we were 

 on the lake. 



"From some of the old hunters we collected the following facts concern- 

 ing the Grebe hunting. They told us that no Grebes were shot last year or 

 this year for the market, and investigation about these lakes showed that 

 this was true. The last year that Grebes were hunted in this locality was 

 in 1903. The two years previous great numbers were shipped from this 

 point. One of the hunters told us he saw $30,000 worth of skins piled up 

 ready for one shipment from Merrill. At the time there were twelve 

 different hunters along the north end of Tule Lake. 



''One of the hunters told us he shot 135 Grebes at one sitting. After 

 hunting for two years the professional hunters realized that the birds were 

 getting scarcer, and they held a meeting in order to protect the birds during 

 the breeding season. The farmers would not agree to this, — they were going 

 to shoot at any time; so, after that, the hunters shot whenever they could 

 find birds, in nesting season and out. At first the skins brought from sixty 



NEST AND NEWLY HATCHED YOUNG OF 



WESTERN GREBE 



Photoeraphed by Finley and Bohlman 



