Jan., 1914 
COMMUNICATIONS 
4.1 
busily waiting for a boat to sail for Juan 
Fernandez Island. The sailing was scheduled 
for a week ago, but schedules are often 
broken, one soon discovers here. We spent 
a month at Lake Titicaca in the Peruvian 
Andes, and noticed with interest the slower 
movement and long duration of the South 
American earthciuake as compared with our 
California ones. We were sitting at the 
skinning table working on a bird skin, and 
discussed the quake during the movement as 
well as noting some movement in the stove 
pipe and trees near the window. The same 
“terremoto” shook things and towns much 
harder to the north and west of us. 
Going out in the patio the iirst morning 
after our arrival I was greatly surprised to 
see a California Quail in a large cage with 
several other birds. A couple of Cinnamon 
Teal and three or four native teal were in 
another cage, while a mudhen and a couple 
of tinamous had the liberty of the yard, and 
had been kept there for over a year the 
owner said. It called up scenes in the Joa- 
quin to see Cinnamon Teal sitting about 
among the reeds in the lake. The black- 
birds acted the same way as do the redwings, 
but their wings were yellow patched instead 
of red. 
The flamingos still interest me with their 
adaptability. Skirting the shores of the lake 
the morning we left, ice was seen along the 
edge and at one place we flushed four 
flamingos as the train rounded a point. They 
had been getting a cold breakfast in the 
shallow w'ater. In Pisco Bay, where sea- 
hirds swarm, it enlightened me to see 
flamingos standing along the bay shore sur- 
rounded by pelicans, boolnes and gulls, while 
cormorants fished close by them, and Surf- 
birds, with smaller shore-birds,, ran about 
their legs. 
Glancing out of the window here, I see the 
lookout barrel on the masthead of a tvhalcr 
close by, in the bay, and I w'onder that any- 
one could ever have discredited the belief in 
the efficacy of whaling stations as desirable 
collecting points for Tubinares. 
Hiring a boat yesterday, I rowed out past 
steamers and warships into the open ocean. 
The last warship had been passed less than 
a mile when a bunch of a dozen albatrosses 
were approached, sitting on the wniter. Some I 
might have killed with the auxiliary barrel ; 
others sat about and mingled with the Sooty 
Shearwaters in their endless southern flight. 
Giant Fulmars fought with each other and 
the gulls at the city dump hut a few feet 
from shore ; while the grayish Fulmars re- 
minding one so much of the Pacific bird, 
acted as our northern ones do at Monterey. 
I often think of the modest request tor a 
series of Skuas after I’d turned in a couple 
at Monterey. Here they fly about the har- 
bors and sit on the water just to leeward, 
usually, of the gulls. One yesterday was 
picking himself on a low-lying buoy, while 
the gulls, closely resembling the Western, 
perched above on a barge. 
Climbing up a canyon in the back part of 
town the other day to test some auxiliary 
shells, I heard the call of the California Quail 
in the brush. This canyon might have been 
matched in southern California with the 
surroundings, though most of the birds dif- 
fered somewhat. Particularly, the only 
hummer seen was one of the giant fellows 
resembling a Swift in flight, and in its call 
reminding me instantly of the squeak of the 
rat I heard caught in a trap in the room 
overhead the night before ! One sees many 
birds caged here, and some of them are nice 
singers. A couple of large, brightly marked 
plover running loose in a small garden we 
admired greatly. Sincerely, 
R. H. Beck. 
J’alparaiso, Chile, November g, 1913. 
PUBLICATIONS REVIEWED. 
The Oregon Sportsman. Published 
monthly under the direction of William L. 
Finley, State Game Warden, 806-7-8 Yeon 
Building, Portland, Oregon. Price 5 cents a 
copy, 50 cents a year. 
When we heard of a state game warden in 
Oregon who believed in education rather 
than police patrol as a means of enforcing 
game laws, we wondered what methods 
would be used. Lip to the present time we 
have been made acquainted with two meth- 
ods, lioth of which are timely and will with- 
out doubt meet with great success. The first 
is a series of lectures on game given through- 
out the state. The second is a new publica- 
tion called "The Oregon Sportsman,’’ which 
is now four months old, the first number hav- 
ing appeared in September, 1913. 
The particularly noticeable characteristics 
of this new publication and which arc bound to 
make it successful are, first, the attractive 
cover, usually a reproduction of a photograph 
of some game animal or bird in the wild ; 
second, the catchy headings and “readable- 
ness” of tbe text, and third, the small cost. 
The contents of each number is distributed 
under three main headings — editorials, gen- 
eral notes, and notes from counties. An oc- 
casional short article is contributed, and the 
first number contained a report of tbe hunt- 
ing and fishing licenses sold. An idea of the 
editorial column can be had from the fol- 
lowing gleaned from the first number ; 
"The State Hoard of Fish and Game Commis- 
sioners is striving to make fishing and hunt- 
