304 CALIFORNIA BIRD STUDIES 



thing about him to which the hunter in me responded. Big 

 game and fur-bearing animals quickly disappear before the 

 advance of civilization, but human nature does not change 

 so readily. 



The fact that there were no buffalos to kill or beavers to 

 trap, did not prevent this man from being a hunter, and in 

 default of larger quarry he shot Ducks and Grebes and 

 trapped minks, making enough to live in the isolation which 

 his nature called for. 



The fact that m.j ' ' specimens ' ' were designed for a 

 museum, and his " skins " for a milliner's shop did not 

 seem to him to create any special difference in our calling 

 and, believing that we were both plying the same trade, he 

 freely discussed its various aspects and offered me much 

 advice as to the best manner in which to kill Grebes. 



Pelicans, lie believed, should be protected by law because 

 they ate the dead fish which at that time dotted the lake in 

 hundreds. But on Cormorants, — " Shags " he called them 

 — there ought to be a bounty because they ate only live fish. 

 As for Grebes, they were no good one way or the other, ex- 

 cept to kill, and if I had advanced aesthetic reasons for the 

 preservation of these marvellously graceful witches of the 

 water, I should probably have spoken in a foreign tongue. 

 Perhaps it will be time enough to turn our attention to the 

 aesthetic education of the hunter when we have convinced 

 the wearer of the borrowed plumes of her moral responsi- 

 bilities in this matter of bird destruction. 



So much easier is it to collect material things than facts, 

 that lief ore I had even made the acquaintance of Klamath 

 Lake birds I had secured the specimens, accessories and 

 photographs on which to base our proposed group. Mr. Hit- 

 tell bad completed his sketches, and with a study of its bird- 

 life only just begun, I left this region of enchantment. 



