The Pintail 



Taken on Empire Gun Club Grounds, near Elkhorn, Monterey County 



SPRIGS QUITTING POND TEN 



Photo by the Author 



really counts upon wild ducks as an adjunct to the bill of fare? If "Sport," 

 as now constituted, does not give over its insensate selfishness, or else 

 turn to and raise its own birds for the slaughter, the generation about 

 to be born will never know the sight of the vanishing River Ducks. 



But someone will say: "I have seen hundreds of ducks at such and 

 such a place." Yes, but your grandfather saw hundreds of thousands of 

 ducks at the same place. We are talking of tendencies and policies now, 

 not of where a bag may possibly be secured today. I repeat, that in 

 spite of bag-limits and federal restrictions and the cessation of market 

 shooting, unless there is an aggressive movement toward game propa- 

 gation, we shall presently have to give over shooting for lack of anything 

 to shoot. 



But who wants to shoot, anyhow? Come with me, and we will 

 bag 5000 ducks of a dozen species with our double-barreled binoculars. 

 If you must have trophies, remember that the best photographs of wild 

 ducks have never been taken yet; nor (with humble apologies to the 

 Major) the best pictures painted. The scene is Laguna Blanca (at its 

 best, while thoroughgoing protection was in force) ; the date — shall we 

 call it December 4th, 1912. A sheet of water containing less than thirty 

 acres is bounded by heavy beds of tule, save where for a stretch of fifty 

 yards a clear bank slopes gently to the water. A macadam road, some- 

 what elevated above the reeds, runs round the whole, but at a distance 

 sufficient to reassure the birds. The reeds themselves are full of the 

 lesser birds, but on the shimmering surface of the water rest two or 



1788 



