The White-faced Glossy Ibis 



Damn your guns anyhow! From arquebuses to Big Berthas they 

 have left an unbroken record of desolation. "Arms" they are, indeed, ex- 

 tensions of the human arms, but only energized extensions of lust and 

 malice and cruelty; and these had weapons enough before. At their best, 

 and plied in defense of loved ones, guns have only invited counter-blasts as 

 baleful. At their worst, and normally, they have been instruments of 

 ruthlessness which have left the world forever impoverished. Where are 



Taken on Laguna Blanca 



PREOCCUPATION 



Photo by the Author 



the Passenger Pigeons? Ask the guns. Where are the Heath Hens and the 

 Carolina Paroquets and the Eskimo Curlews and the Whooping Cranes 

 and the Trumpeter Swans? Guns! Guns!! Guns!!! Damn the guns! 

 The first vision of Ibises the author ever had was during the spring 

 migrations at Santa Barbara. A dip in the road, where the tongue of an 

 estero crossed, was suddenly lighted up by a burst of black forms, — a 

 flock of land-locked cormorants, I thought momentarily. But the "shags" 

 were too graceful by half as they breasted the strong wind ; and as they 

 hovered questingly, in exquisite syncopation of flight, my recovering 

 senses grasped the significance of wine-red reflections. White-faced 

 Glossy Ibises! What splendid birds they are! A score of them, a very 



1927 



