56 THE CONDOR Vol. XX ' Stockton. Beaver built houses on the marshes as the musk-rats do on the marshes on the prairies of the Middle West. There 'were several of these bea- ver houses within three miles of Stockton. They were on land that floated, as much of the peat land does in the rule swamps about Stockton. I shot seven beavers one day during the flood of 1861 and 1862. The few beaver about Marysville burrowed in the banks of the rivers." In 1862 Mr. Belding moved to Marysville. Small game was abundant, while myriads of ducks and geese, attracted by Butte Creek, came from the north and east of the Sierras in October and November. The wood duck was very common on the Feather River, and was a constant resident. "Mountain plover appeared on the plains in October. Mountain quail came down from the mountains near Or9ville and other localities on the eastern border of the val- ley to spend the winter. I have 0ften hunted geese on Butte Creek and many times tried to get the Blue Goose (caerulescens) but never succeeded so far as to be satisfied .with the result. Of two that I found ia a Stockton market, I sent wings and feet to Mr. Ridgway, who identified the fragments as of caeru- lescens. "At Marysville Buttes both species of quail are numerous in winter. It was usually above the winter fogs of the valley, when the Coast Range of mountains seemed to be the western border of a great sea. I often went there alone, and when the roads were very bad I would go on horseback, and usually at such times stayed at the country hotel a week or more. My horse would allow me to shoot from its back, or if I dismounted would follow me like a dog. Once while I was riding him through chaparral, he stopped, pointed his ears forward, and attracted my attention to a pack of quail that were running on the trail ahead of him. "I retired from business in 1875, after which I hunted, and .fished for trout, spent my summers in the Sierras, always taking a shot-gun and a trout rod with me. "Game gradually became scarcer in the high Sierra Nevadas as sheep and hunters became more numerous. Deer avoided a range where sheep pastured. 'It was thought proper ,for anyone in the mountains, whenever they needed .meat, to kill a deer, and Indians were free to kill them at any time, on the ven- erable theory that an Indian had the right because of his needs, forgetting that
the Indian no longer used the bow and arrow, but instead of it he had the re-
peating gun and was often expert in its use. I have seen Washoe Indians from Nevada on their. way home from a hunt in California have six deer carcasses, besides jerked venison in unknown quantity, and numerous grouse lying on the wharf at Tahoe City, and a white man was prohibited from killing it. About a hundred Washoe Indians had spent two winters in Calaveras County, and nearly exterminated the deer. A Mr. Williams told me he bought twelve hun- dred skins from them. Other dealers probably bought as many more. * * They were as destructive to trout in the small streams as they were to deer ap- parently, as they used soap root to stupify and kill'the trout, and in so doing killed the most of the young fish. These streams contained no trout or other fish on the west slope where the altitude was over 3500 feet, until they were stocked by white men. * * * "Early in the spring of 1876 I got a volume of California Ornithology and began industriously to collect and identify the birds of this State. I had been an ardent sportsman ever since I was a small boy and I supposed that ][ knew
