Editorials. 



45 



Secretary Fisher called attention to the fact that the Board of Army 

 Engineers had repeatedly, but vainly, asked that the estimates of cost be 

 reduced to a parity for purposes of comparison, and ordered that the 

 City's engineers reduce all the estimates to a common basis within a 

 reasonable time. The decision of the Secretary may be rendered at any 

 time. 



Unfortunately, the accounts of the hearing which appeared in the 

 San Francisco papers were intensely biased and misleading. Quite with- 

 out foundation of fact was the reported split within the Sierra Club. 

 While a few members of the Club have always favored the City's claim, 

 there never has been any serious question about the sentiment of the 

 great majority, and the officers are not aware of any dissension over 

 the matter. W. F. B. 



Conservation Among the notes and correspondence will be found 

 OF Wild Life. an account of the organization of the California As- 

 sociated Societies for the Conservation of Wild Life. 

 Eight strong organizations, including the Sierra Club, have delegated 

 representatives to secure more stringent protective legislation for certain 

 birds and mammals of the Pacific Coast. Some species are disappearing 

 so fast that unless something is done at once to check their destruction 

 by hunters they will become extinct in a very short time. The trumpeter 

 swan and the Columbian pin-tailed grouse are entirely gone, while the 

 mourning dove and the band-tailed pigeon are so reduced in numbers 

 now that they bid fair to follow the passenger pigeon to extinction. An 

 endeavor is being made to secure immediate legislative action in the 

 most urgent cases. The sale of American-killed wild game should be 

 entirely prohibited, as it now is in nineteen States, including New York. 

 Evidence on file in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University 

 of California indicates a diminution of about seventy-five per cent of all 

 game during the last ten years, and most of this destruction is due to 

 the market hunter. It should be clearly understood that legislation which 

 permits hunting for the market is nothing less than class legislation of 

 the worst sort, because it allows a few professional hunters to destroy 

 the sporting privileges of the people as a whole. The claim that hunting 

 for the market is in the interest of the poor man is easily shown to be an 

 absurdity by the fact that wild ducks, for instance, are served only to 

 rich patrons of cafes and hotels, who pay for them as much as two 

 dollars and a half a piece. 



It may properly be regarded as one of the higher functions of a moun- 

 tain club to give support to such movements for the conservation of 

 wild life, and to encourage and commend such rare philanthropic acts 

 as the recent purchase of Marsh Island in the Gulf of Mexico, by Mrs. 

 Russell Sage, to be dedicated as a guarded refuge for the migratory 

 birds of America. This island had long been the most popular haunt of 

 the Southern market gunner, because shorebirds flocked to it by the 

 million — only to be slaughtered. W. F. B. 



