G44 
G A M BIRDS OF THE PACIFIC 
unreasonable slaughter. In different parts 
of the Coast the day’s limit varies from 
twenty-five to fifty, except in Alexico where 
there is no restriction. These limit bags, 
in any favorable locality, arc generally easily 
made, ’ and, to their credit be it said, the 
sportsmen are better satisfied to-day with a 
limit bag than they used to be with the result 
of a day’s shoot when it reached a hundred or 
more. The market-hunter, however, kills 
all he can slaughter with his big guns, and 
this, too, in open violation of the law. A"et 
while the law in California limits him to 
thirty-five in a day, the same as any one else, 
he is, for some unknown reason, allowed to 
continue the slaughter as he pleases and the 
markets to handle in illegal numbers his 
illegally killed game. 
CRIMINAL SLAUGHTER 
I have said that the Pacific Coast is the 
greatest duck-shooting country on earth, but 
it will not long be so unless our law makers 
put a stop to the traffic in ducks. The old 
fallacious argument that our ducks breed in 
the far north, and thus, whatever our slaughter 
may be, it has no effect on the. next season’s 
supply, is criminally against the interests of 
the state. The fact is tliat most of the ducks 
killed on these shooting grounds are bred , 
within the Pacific states. But even were it 
true that our ducks breed in the Arctic, the 
effect of an unreasonable slaughter would be 
the same, for as the number returning to these 
grounds is reduced, the number that will be 
bred to return to ns in the fall must be reduced 
in the same proportion, since migratory birds 
migi’ate along the same lines from year to 
year, returning in the spring to the same 
breeding grounds and in the fall to the same 
winter quarters. Therefore, if the people of 
the Pacific Coast wish to maintain their 
excellent duck shooting — worth to the whole 
people millions of dollars annually through 
the money spent by sportsmen for transporta- 
tion, rents, the erection of clubhouses, salaries 
of keepers, gun repairing, clothing, guns, 
ammunition and a hundred other things — 
they must do with the ducks as they have 
done with the quail, deer, doves and shore 
birds; they must put a stop to their sale. A few 
men who shoot for the markets, kill more ducks 
each season than the one hundred thousand 
s])ortsmen who shoot for their own pleasure 
and who j)lace into general circulation millions 
of dollars that enter in to every avenue of trade. 
d’he great irrigation scheme now being 
j)erfected by the United States government. 
which when completed will drain the mar.sh 
lands of the Klamath lakes, is destined to 
seriously affect the supply of ducks from the 
country that extends from the northern 
counties of California to Mexico. These 
lakes have been the breeding grounds of 
millions of our ducks, which work south as 
soon as the young birds are strong enough of 
wing to begin their migrations, and the 
reclaiming of these marsh lands will soon show 
its effect upon the supply unless a stop is put 
to those men who engage in the business of 
killing every duck possible from the opening 
to the close of the season, in defiance of the 
laws enacted for the conservation of this 
valuable asset in the resources of the state. 
KING CANVASBACK 
The canvasback (aythya vallisneria), the 
duck far excellence of the Eastern states, is 
very plentiful in the more northern portions 
of the territorial scope of these articles, though 
I have seen them in good numbers on the lakes 
of Mexico. It is the general supposition that 
the canvasback breeds in the far north, but 
from the fact that they are found on the lakes 
of Mexico as early as September, they must 
also breed on the higher lakes of our moun- 
tains. On our lower marshes they are a late 
duck, but they appear on our mountain lakes 
quite early in the season. Canvasback 
shooting on our waters affoi’ds the finest of 
sport, as it does not partake so much of flock 
shooting as it does on the Chesapeake and the 
Delaware river. While I certainly prefer our 
shooting, by no means do I prefer our ducks. 
When killed on the mountain lakes, our 
canvasback possesses nearly if not quite as 
fine flavor as do those of the eastern states, 
but when killed on the bays and salt marshes 
of California they are fishy and barely palatable 
This is caused by the absence of the so-called 
wild celery, properly tape grass {vallisneria 
spiralis), the common food of the Eastern 
canvasback. Our birds have the habit of 
feeding largely on the shallow waters of the 
tide lands and marshes and of consuming 
large quantities of crustaceans, such as clams, 
crabs, mussels and the like, and it takes but a 
few days’ diet of this kind to make the canvas- 
back about the poorest of ducks. 
I shall never forget the experience of an 
eastern friend with whom I was shooting a 
number of years ago. The morning flight 
was about over and we were paying less 
attention to the ducks than to an interesting 
conversation — we were only about thirty 
yards apart — regarding the equipment of his 
