268 Union Bay 



close that their spray sprinkled the canoe, and they imme- 

 diately began to eat the floating duckweed in great and noisy 

 gulps. When I observed their hunger I began to realize the 

 value of these small protected spots. My early conservation 

 ideas included refuges of thousands of acres. I have since 

 learned that any place, regardless of size, will be used by 

 ducks if they can feed unmolested. The action of these birds 

 and of many others demonstrates that at times these little 

 sanctuaries are desperately needed. 



I continued my trip and approached a flock of pintails. 

 They paid little attention to my slow progress. They had not 

 been in the marsh long and would go soon, for they were 

 among the birds that used the place only temporarily. I did 

 not know exactly where they had been raised, for the pintail 

 breeds along the long coastal strip north of us to upper 

 Alaska. I did know that, like all ducks, they had been subject 

 to predation from the day the first egg had been laid. If the 

 nests happened to be near the villages or camps of the na- 

 tives, the children had raided them constantly and had con- 

 tinued to harry the young until they left. And there were 

 the coyotes, the foxes, and other mammals which kept fat 

 by locating the eggs or young. The predatory birds would 

 share in the feast, and patrolling gulls,, skuas, jaegers, and 

 ravens would dash down upon any unprotected nest. And 

 there was the hazard of storm and drought so that the mor- 

 tality during the nesting has been estimated as more than 

 fifty per cent— few observers have thought it less. 



I would have liked to know the history of the flight that 

 brought these pintails from their nesting grounds. Had they 

 been raised near the Yukon River or farther south? Was it a 

 leisurely or fast journey? Had the birds been raided by the 

 bold duck hawks which stationed themselves on rocky head- 

 lands and sallied forth like the pirates of old to take toll from 

 those which passed? Had they found plenty to eat or had 



