THE MARSHES OF MALHEUR 105 



and going, expecting to find at least a few white 

 herons somewhere about the locality. 



" After hunting for seven days we returned to 

 camp for more provisions, and set out to visit 

 another part of the lake. This time we stayed out 

 for nine days, and saw — two white herons ! At 

 the time we thought these must be part of a group 

 that nested somewhere about the lake; yet more 

 likely they were a single stray bird that came our 

 way twice. I am satisfied that of the thousands 

 of white herons formerly nesting on Malheur, not 

 a single pair of birds is left." 



It may have been two birds that they saw and 

 not one. For he has not told all of the story 

 yet; how in the summer of 1912 he received 

 a telegram saying white herons (the American 

 egret) had been seen passing over the marshes of 

 Malheur; nor how we set out from Portland for 

 Burns ; nor how, away off on an island in the 

 alkali water of Silver Lake, some fifty miles in 

 the desert from Malheur, we found the birds — 

 a colony of a dozen pairs, numbering with the 

 young about twenty-eight birds all told; nor 

 how — 



But that is for him to tell, if he will. For if the 



