ORNITHOLOGIST 
— AND — 
OOLOGIST. 
$1.00 per Joseph M. Wade, Editor and Publisher. Single Copy, 
Annum. Established, March, 1875. 10 Cents. 
VOL. VII, NORWICH, CONN., JUNE, 1882. NO, 17. 
Malheur Lake, Oregon, 
BY CAPT. CHAS. E. BENDIEE, U. S. A. 
April 14, 1875, the writer with a party of 
friends started from Camp Harney to Mal¬ 
heur Lake (both of which places are loca¬ 
ted in Grant County, in the southeastern 
portion of Oregon), the lake about twenty- 
five miles south of the post. The ostensi¬ 
ble objects of the trip were, (1st,) to hunt 
water fowl, thousands of which were to be 
found at that season of the year on the 
shores of the lake, which was a favorite 
resting place for them, a sort of half way 
house on their migrations to and from their 
breeding places in the northern regions ; 
and also to try the sailing qualities of a 
good-sized boat, which a joint stock com¬ 
pany of us had constructed during the pre¬ 
vious Winter, and which was to be launched 
on the lake for the first time. The ice hav¬ 
ing only broken uji a few days preGously, 
and occasional patches of snow were still 
to be seen in places on the plain interven¬ 
ing between the lake and the jmst, so that 
the idea of possibly finding eggs so early 
in the season never once entered my head, 
and I made no preparations whatever for 
their care. However, early as it was I 
■ DiiUu cnat several specie..., liatl commencect 
nesting already, among these the American 
lute Pelican, {l^elecartus erythrorhyn- 
ohuH, Gmel.), whose eggs were still rare in 
most collections, and well prepared sped 
mens especial desiderata. 
We made oim first camp on Sylvie's River, 
a large tributary of the lake, some sixteen 
miles from the post, and from which point 
it looked simple enough to get into the 
lake—till we tried it. A thick belt of heavy 
tules about a mile wide intervened between 
the point where the stream ceased to be 
navigable and the open waters of the lake, 
which we found to be nowhere more than 
a few feet deep. It took us till noon of 
the 16th to find a channel which finally al¬ 
lowed us to float our boat on the lake 
proper. We were well repaid, however, 
for all our labor Swan, Geese and Ducks 
were to be seen in all directions, and sev¬ 
eral low, narrow islands near the eastern 
end of the lake seemed to be literally cov¬ 
ered with water fowl of various kinds. On 
landing on the nearest island I found it 
was occirpied by quite a colony of the 
American White Pelican, the Great Blue 
Heron and the Double-crested Cormorant, 
besides various sjjecies of Ducks and a few 
Canada Geese. There are five of these 
islands, separated from each other by nar¬ 
row channels. The two largest are each 
about six hundred yards long and not over 
a hundred yards wide at any place, gener¬ 
ally less; the central portion, forming a sort 
of a ridge, is covered with a heavy growth 
of a species of grease woo<l, extending in 
a strip from ten to fifteen feet wide the 
whole of their length. Close to the east- 
e^u edge ot this strqj ot grease wood, on a 
dry sandy slo^je which was well sheltered 
from the wind, I found my first Pelican’s 
eggs, and not more than ten feet from them 
was quite a patch of snow. The nests, if 
they can be called such, consisted simply 
of rubbish scraped up by the birds in the 
immediate vicinity, to keep the eggs from 
rolling about, the eggs theTiiselves laying- 
on the bai’e sand. About one-fouj-th of 
