192 WILD LIFE AND THE CAMERA 



record where a game warden found a heap of 

 these tiny beauties on which was placed a card 

 bearing the following : " We killed 1,000 of these 

 fish in this place," and they were left to dry up, 

 serving no purpose whatever. Strange it is that 

 men can have so httle sense of the eternal fitness 

 of things. Why should such men take the trouble 

 to camp when apparently nothing appeals to their 

 sense of beauty or fair play, or I may add, of 

 common sense ?— for one would suppose that even 

 they must reahse that such slaughter means at 

 last the destruction of the very objects which they 

 declare give them sport. Perhaps they don't think. 

 That at least is the most charitable view one can 

 take. 



Our stay in the Kern River valley was limited 

 by the amount of food we had brought. Only too 

 short a time did it last, and long before I had had 

 enough of the fine fishing and dehghtful scenery 

 we were compelled to start homeward. Wishing 

 to see as much of the country as possible I chose 

 to return by another trail, which led us eventually 

 through the famous forest of giant redwoods, 

 where the trees are large beyond aU understanding, 

 so large that carriages can drive through the 

 divided bases of the still standing trees. The 

 crownless tops detract somewhat from the actual 

 beauty of these ancients of the forest, but in 

 their grandeur and majesty they stand alone 

 among all the trees of the world. Their destruc- 

 tion for commercial purposes would have been a 

 national, or I should say a world-wide calamity, 

 and we should be grateful to those who, like 



