Notes and Correspondence. 



123 



NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



In addition to longer articles suitable for the body of the magazine, the 

 editor would be glad to receive brief memoranda of all noteworthy trips or 

 explorations, together with brief comment and suggestion on any topics of 

 general interest to the Club. Descriptive or narrative articles, or notes 

 concerning the animals, birds, fish, forests, trails, geology, botany, etc., of 

 the mountains, will be acceptable. 



The office of the Sierra Club is Room 302 Mills Building, San Francisco, 

 where all Club mem.bers are welcome, and where all the maps, photographs, 

 and other records of the Club are kept. 



The Club would like to secure additional copies of those numbers of 

 the Sierra Club Bulletin which are noted on the back of the cover of this 

 number as being out of print, and we hope any member having extra 

 copies will send them to the Secretary. 



British Embassy, Washington, May 10, 1909. 



My Uear Sir: I am obliged by your letter informing me that 

 I have been elected an honorary member of the Sierra Club. 

 I appreciate the compliment very highly and beg you to be good 

 enough to convey my thanks to the Club. To one whose chief 

 recreation and pleasure in life has been the practice of mountain- 

 climbing, it is particularly agreeable to be associated with a body 

 which has done so much for the exploration of one of the noblest 

 mountain ranges in the world and among whose members there 

 are so many climbers of brilliant eminence. 



Believe me to be, 



Very faithfully yours, 

 W. E, Colby, Esq., James Bryce. 



Sierra Club. 



[See page 41 of last issue.] 



Berkeley, Cal., May 18, 1909. 



Editor Sierra Club Bulletin: I think there can be no doubt as 

 to the correctness of your etymology and spelling of the word 

 "duck" as used by our western mountaineers to designate a stone 

 placed upon another larger stone or mass of rock to mark a trail. 

 Murray's Dictionary, our best reliance in all such matters, under 

 duck 6, gives the following : "A boy's game, called also duckstone, 

 duckiestone ; also one of the stones used in this game." Two 

 citations given are as follows : "1821, Blackwood's Magazine, 

 The duck is a small stone placed on a larger, and attempted to 

 be hit off by the players at the distance of a few paces;" and 

 "1888-9," Longman's Magazine. Another [game] named "ducks- 



