652 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 24, 1909. 
shoreward like an empty cracker-box. We 
dried out the rest of the day and went at it 
again the following morning with about the 
same success. The fourth day the surf dropped 
lower and we reached the smooth water beyond. 
As we pulled out beyond the surf and came 
nearer the rocks, the air-laden guano smell 
struck our nostrils. The babble of distant 
sound, punctuated by the scream of a nearby 
gull or the roar of a sea lion was borne on 
the westerly breeze. As we approached the 
low-lying rocks, the huge hulks of sea lions 
stretched about like logs thrown up by the 
tide. The ranks grew thinner as they receded 
from the water’s edge, till the topmost ledges 
of the reef-rock were occupied by two or three 
magnificent bulls. They were all alert. They 
dragged themselves along the ledges on their 
elbows about as a person would whose hands 
and feet were tied. The bellowing grew louder 
and louder till one would have thought the fog¬ 
horns of a fleet of warships had suddenly 
broken loose. Mingled with the roaring of the 
bulls was the bleating of a hundred calves, and 
the cries of thousands of sea fowl that scurried 
about overhead like swarms around an arc- 
lamp in May-fly time. We could not talk above 
the din. When we got nearer, many of the 
lions wabbled to the edges of the ledges and 
rolled off in the water. Those nearer the top 
came down the slope in little jumps that ended 
in a splash. The old bull on top left slowly and 
defiantly like a captain reluctant to leave his 
sinking ship. Two mothers and a crowd of the 
babies stayed. 
As we approached nearer the great stacks of 
basalt jutting from the sea, we could see flocks 
of murres whirling and flashing in circles far up 
under the eaves of the rock. Hundreds of 
others sat in long white waist-coated lines on 
every available ledge, as if on dress parade. 
Squads splattered over the water and dove 
about our boat. Squadrons of pug-nosed 
puffins, with their short wings and roll-shaped 
bodies, buzzed about like bumble-bees. White¬ 
winged gulls, curious and cackling, followed in 
our wake Ungainly cormorants flapped 
solemnly away, and bands of others strung out 
in Indian file as they returned. Far up the sides 
and penciled against the blue sky we could 
see their black regiments standing at rigid at¬ 
tention beside their nests and eggs. It was a 
picture I can never forget. 
It was not easy to land on the outer rock 
itself. The steady ground-swell would not let 
the boat touch the rock. We found a place on 
the south side, where the rock shelved down to 
tide-level. .\s the wave receded, we backed the 
boat in and one of us landed in a flying leap 
while the other pulled away to keep from being 
dashed against the jagged rock by the next 
breaker. Provisions had to be pitched out and 
some of our bulkier belongings barely escaped. 
It was a much more difficult task ledging our 
boat, as it weighed over five hundred pounds. 
We had to swing her well in on the crest of a 
big wave and hold her as the wave receded, 
then work her up with block and tackle to a 
twelve-foot table away from the lash of the 
waves. 
When we began looking for the best camping 
spot on the rough jagged side of that cliff, it 
was a good deal like hunting for a lodging on a 
winding staircase. We could not carry our 
provisions to the top of the rock, so there was 
not much choice. There was only one landing 
that was wide enough to stretch out on, and that 
looked as comfortable as the top of a broken 
picket fence. 
It took us all day with a small rock drill 
and ax to level off a space wide enough for a 
bed. Despite our attempts at breaking the 
boulders, the jagged points annoyed us some¬ 
what during the first night. This bed worked 
a trifle on our nerves, and the second day we 
took the pains to pull a couple of sacks of the 
watery weed that grew on the roof of the rock 
and spread it for a mattress. This native bed¬ 
ding was soft but wet. We dropped to sleep 
readily, but always awoke about midnight, 
when the mattress began steaming, and there 
was not a night when I did not feel the sensa¬ 
tion of getting a third-class Turkish bath. 
The face of the rock on the side where we 
camped is a bold cliff rising from the water to 
a height of 200 feet. While it is perpendicular 
and inaccessible at this point, the side is worn 
out in short narrow ledges and innumerable 
crannies, everj^ one of which is crammed with 
w'hite-breasted murres or guillemots. On the 
next tw'o flats above our roof w'ere two large 
"chicken yards” of murres. .\lthough every¬ 
thing was open about camp, the ventilation was 
vile. Sleeping next that chicken yard w'as 
worse than a room with the doors and wdndows 
opening into a pig-pen. But what could we 
do? The whole island was rancid in spite of 
the airing it got from every wdnd of heaven. 
William L. Finley, 
[to be continued.] 
An Experiment with Purple Martins. 
Many readers will remember Audubon’s 
charming plate of the purple martin, once so 
abundant a species over much of the United 
States. Formerly it was a common bird in New 
England, w'here it is now seen only rarely, while 
in Pennsylvania it is but locally distributed and 
appears to be increasing in numbers. In the 
South it is said to be still abundant. It is a 
very useful bird, destructive to a multitude of 
injurious insects, and one of the birds that num¬ 
bers the cotton boll weevil in the list of its pre¬ 
ferred food. 
Man seems always to have been the martin’s 
friend. In early times, as Wilson tells us, the 
sedentary Indians of the South used to provide 
nesting places for the birds. The negroes did 
the same, and Audubon tells us that in the South 
martin houses were frequently seen over the 
signs of country taverns, and adds that the 
handsomer the bird house the better the inn 
usually proved to be. Thus over much of the 
land these birds have become so accustomed to 
nesting in houses put up for them by man that 
now they seldom build in the hollow trees which 
were their original nesting places. 
The decrease of the martins in towns is prob¬ 
ably due largely to the advent and increase of 
the English sparrow and the persistence with 
which these birds interfere with the breeding 
of the martins, destroying the eggs and nestlings. 
Severe storms during the season of migration 
sometimes kill great numbers of martins, and 
the reduction in numbers of these birds is a 
real misfortune to the country. The martin is 
active and voracious and destroys great num¬ 
bers of harmful beetles. Many years ago Otto 
Widmann, writing from Old Orchard, Mo., re¬ 
corded in Forest and Stre.am his observations 
for a day of a colony of sixteen pairs of mar¬ 
tins, which showed that during the interval be¬ 
tween 4 A. M. and 7 p. M. the parent birds visited 
their young 3,277 times, or 205 times for each 
pair. 
The usefulness of the martin has led many 
bird protectors to advise that special effort be 
made to introduce it in localities from which 
it has disappeared. Chas. W. Miller, director 
of the Worthington Society for the Study of 
Bird Life at Shawnee-on-Delaware, Pa., last year 
carried on an experiment looking toward the re- 
introduction of martins at that place, and in a 
bulletin of the society recently published an 
account of his experiment. 
About the middle of July Mr. Miller secured 
five martins just about able to fly. One of them 
escaped two days later, and during the rest of 
the summer was frequently seen associating with 
barn swallows. The other birds were kept con¬ 
fined until July 22 when they were transferred 
to a large flying cage, where from the first they 
were able to fly with the utmost readiness. On 
the 27th two of the birds were given their 
liberty and were absolutely at home on the wing 
abroad. They gathered much food on the wing, 
but readily approached Mr. Miller when he went 
to fill their food dish. On the 14th of August 
one of the two last martins liberated fed from 
Mr. Miller’s hand, but on the following day 
it disappeared. Nevertheless ten days later the 
two martins returned to the neighborhood of 
their house and spent some time there. They 
did not, however, come to feed. They were 
not seen again, having no doubt migrated. Of 
the two kept in confinement, one died and the 
other remained in good health. Mr. Miller’s 
paper is one of much interest and should be 
read by every bird protector. 
"TT" prisoners Raise Game Birds..f" 
A NOVEL experiment is in process of develop¬ 
ment at the McNeil Island Federal pentiten- 
tiary, near Tacoma, where the convicts are 
rearing Chinese pheasants and Rouen call ducks 
for the market, affording the prisoners a di¬ 
version that relieves their minds from the pall 
of prison life and gives them a small income, 
which they are devoting to the purchase of 
books, newspapers and magazines. The experi¬ 
ment, according to the Seattle Times, originated 
with United States Marshal C. B. Hopkins, 
who advanced the funds for the purchase of 
original stock. 
Pens, yards and coops have been built by 
the prisoners, who have regarded the task as 
much more of a diversion than a labor. Under 
the careful handling the birds have received 
good progress has been made in bringing up 
the little ones, until now the penitentiary has a 
goodly array of both ducks and pheasants ready 
for the market. 
In the beginning a pair of Rouen ducks was 
imported from France, the native ground, and 
the best specimens of Chinese pheasants were 
obtained. The initial outlay was something 
more than $100. Both breeds are well adapted 
to the climate of Puget Sound, where the 
Chinese bird has for years been well known. 
The Rouen ducks are used as decoy birds. 
