MAY., ?9o?. [ THE CONDOR 6 3 cerned. is the bordcr of tules gr,.wing along the shallow shores. In some cases where the water is noxvhere more PHOTO BY COOT'$ NEST, TULl; LAKE, CAL. than five or six feet deep, as in Chewau- can marsh, Oregou, and Franklin l,ake, Nevada The whole lake is a great tule marsh with here and there Open strips of water. Scattered over a region of sagebrush desert with large ranches or open stock range and few human inhabitants, un- til a few years ago they offered a safe breeding ground for vast numbers of ducks pelicans, cormorants, grebes, gulls, terns, heron, stilts, avocets and other waders, while those in the lower valleys also served as xvinter resorts for the more northern as well as the resi- de-t specie?. In spring and early summer the rule bord- ers ?:round the lakes were noisy with the grat;ng und squaw king of yellow-headed blackhirds, the rasping of long-billed marsh wrens. cack- ling and calling of co? ts and grebes, quacking of ducks and the din and racket of hamh- voiced terns and waders all discordant, unmusical sounds but most attractive and interesting to human ears and each telling of happy bird life and busy fmn- ily cares. l.ater in the season the tules are filled xvith the so7tcr and less attract- ive din of millions of mosquitoes. Early in July of 1899. while camped for a fexv days on the shore of Tule I,ake, in northeastern Cali- fornia, I found many of the birds breeding in abundance ? and, late as it was, some of the species still building or . laying. As I waded among ,,a?___.?. the rules exanfining and pho- ?ff? tographing the nests I had a good chance to watch the old L -, ? hirds at close range and ?vas often astonished at their bold- ? hess when the nests or young '? xvere approached As two or three downy ............. young avocets bobbed awk- wardly over a stubby sand- Ilar at mv feet, the ohl birds screamed and dove close to my head aud then fluttered and wallowed on the ground in front of me, while the IPack-necked stilts joined them in sympathetic scold- ing. In striking contrast the pelicans and cormprants deserted their nests and young at the first alarm, but with ap- parent reason. The pelicans had been entirely driven from the peninsula where thousands had been in the habit of breeding and were feeding their young on a few little rocky islands in the lake, while under one group of trees where the cormorantq nested, nearly a hundred almost full groxvn
