Feb. 4, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
171 
I am now twenty-four and have been practic¬ 
ing skiing ever since I was six years old. I 
enjoy the game very much, and I am convinced 
that there is no other sport that equals it for 
excitement, fascination and thrills. Of course 
ski jumping is a very dangerous pastime, so 
perilous in fact that a football game is con¬ 
sidered as child’s play beside it. In the first 
place a successful skier should have a clear mind 
and cool head. He must have perfect control of 
his muscles, especially those of the legs and 
feet. He must possess an abundance of re¬ 
sourcefulness and have the agility of a cat. 
Every time he goes down the slide he practi¬ 
cally takes his life in his hands, and to make 
a blunder under such conditions would be more 
than a pardonable neglect. 
A thrill shoots through the marrow as one 
dives down the narrow slippery slide, and the 
bottom of the hill with the dead man’s curve 
appears as a yawning chasm far below. As I 
start on the perilous journey I gain momentum 
with every foot, and as I dash into the air for 
the jump, the feeling is indescribable. Although 
one is in the air but a few seconds, it appears 
a wonderfully long time, and the only desire 
one has is to hit the snowy surface as soon as 
possible. \\ hile in the air a perfect equilibrium 
has to be maintained, and the slightest variation 
then on the part of the jumper might turn out 
to be fatal. The supreme test comes in the 
landing. Most skiers have the feeling just then 
that it is better to fall than to run the chances 
of taking the great impact which follows when 
striking the snow. If the alighting could be 
done on a level surface, it would not be diffi¬ 
cult, but it is done on a slippery incline. To 
stand on the skis and retain balance under such 
conditions, cover the remaining distance of the 
hill in an upright position and pass the curve 
without a hitch, constitute a task of which the 
inexperienced can form no idea.” 
Pelican Island. 
The migratory habits of birds have long been 
the subject of speculation on the part of natu¬ 
ralists, but so far no one has been able to state 
positively whether or not individual birds of each 
species have a regular locality where they yearly 
repair at nesting time. Unless especially marked 
COMING DOWN THE SLIDE. 
It would be impossible to tell whether the robin 
that reared its brood in the apple tree in your 
yard last year was the same one that nested 
there this season. Also there is no way of find¬ 
ing out if the same pair of robins mate together 
every season. The same statements hold good 
with most other species whose range of nesting 
covers an extended area. With some birds, how¬ 
ever, the case is different. The brown pelican 
for instance has but a few nesting places on the 
Atlantic coast, two of which are in Florida, one 
on the Indian River midway between Titusville 
and Fort Pierce, and the other at Passage Key 
on the Gulf coast. I his latter reservation is 
also a breeding place for gulls and terns. 
1 he reservation on Indian River is known as 
Pelican Island and is situated at the northern 
edge of the chain of mangrove-covered islands 
which extend from Sebastian to the vicinity of 
Vero and is almost five miles from my home 
at Wabasso. It furnishes one of the many ob¬ 
jects of interest which we delight in showing 
to our Northern friends who winter with us. 
The island covers something more than three 
acres and is almost entirely a mud flat, covered 
with clumps of tall, wiry switch grass. When 
F. M. Chapman was on the island in 1898 he 
states in his delightful book, “Bird Studies with 
a Camera, ’ that there were a few live black 
mangrove trees and cabbage palms, but that 
fully one-fourth of the island was bare ground. 
If he were to visit the place now he would find 
it still more barren. The tall straight trunks 
of the cabbage trees, entirely devoid of fans, 
loom up like huge gate posts. The mangroves 
have died and only a few naked limbs reach¬ 
ing up into the air remain to attest the fact 
that trees once grew on the island. 
Just why the pelicans choose this particular 
island as their nesting place has ever been a 
source of wonder to me, for nearby there are a 
number of others which appear to be just as 
well or better suited to their needs. The only 
explanation I can offer is the home attachment 
which among the human race causes the Arabs 
to love the cheerless deserts or the Swiss their 
rugged mountains. It is said that a few pelicans 
once built nests on another island near Nar¬ 
rows, but since I have been on the river I have 
learned nothing concerning this, and think the 
statement must be an error. 
When Mr. Chapman visited the island he found 
251 occupied nests which contained 158 young 
birds and 250 unhatched eggs. I visited the 
island in February, 1910, and at that time the 
warden in charge estimated the crop of young 
birds at something over 1,000, a remarkable in¬ 
crease and a splendid argument in favor of the 
protection of the breeding places of the birds. 
Prior to 1901 the poor birds were harassed 
throughout the entire nesting season by plume 
hunters, egg collectors and vandal tourists who 
broke up the nests and shot the birds in great 
numbers. 1 he story of some of these slaughter¬ 
ing matches is disgusting in the extreme. A11 
old man who wintered for a number of years 
THE JUMP. 
in this region told me that he landed on the 
island after one of these raids and found the 
entire place littered with the dead bodies of the 
birds, and once the heads had been cut off and 
left in piles. No doubt there had been a con¬ 
test among the tourists as to who could kill the 
most in a given length of time, and the heads 
were collected to keep tally much in the same 
manner as buffalo tongues were used years ago 
