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2OO THE CONDOR Vol. XlV THE CONDOll, A l?[a?azine of Western Ornltho, lo?y Fublished Bi-?ontbly by tb? Cooper Omitholo?ic&l Club J. GRINNELL. Editor, Berkeley. C?liforni? HARRY S. SWARTH, Associate E?tor J. EVGENE LAW % W. LEE CHAMBE[S ? Business M?nefe? Hollywood, California: Publish0d $0pt, 28, 1912 SUBSClklPTION RATES One Dollar and Fifty Cents peryear in the United States, Canada, Mexico and U.S. Colonies, payable in advance Thirty Cents the single copy. One Doll&r and Seventy-five Cents per Year in all other countries in the International Postal Union. Claims for missing .or imperfect numbers should be made within thirty days of date of issue. Subscriptions and Exchanges should be sent to the Business Manager. Me, nuscripts for publle?tion. and Books and P?.pers for review, should be sent to the Editor. Advertising Rates on application. EDITORIAL NOTES AND NEWS This issue is concluded with the annual "Club Roster".. It shows the membership of the Cooper Ornithological Club on September 1, 1912, to be 410 in the active class, and six in the honorary class. We would be glad of information as to any errors in spelling, or changes in address, so that the Seeretary's list may be perfected accordingly. By the election of Mr. Frank Stephens to Honorary membership in the Cooper Club, just distinction has been conferred upon a man who is closely identified with the develop- ment of the ornithology of the southwest. As set forth in the Club's minutes on a subse- quent page, Mr. Stephens may be fairly credit- ed with having obtained a large part of the first information in regard to many of the birds peculiar to Arizona and southern California. This field-work was carried on, too, at a time when conditions made it far more difficult than we now can realize. C(?oper Club members will have noted with approval the new seal appearing on the title pages of Avifauna numbers 7 and 8. This design was executed and presented to the Club by the one-time editor of Tax CoNt)o?, Mr. Walter K. Fisher, who thus registers his continued loyalty to the Club's welfare. Mr. L. E. Wyman, of Nampa, Idaho, spent the month of June in the high mountains of central and northeastern Idaho, collecting birds and mammals for the Biological Sur- vey. ?. AlbertH. Frost, for some years a Cooper Club member, and always an enthusiastic de- votee of oology, died at his home in New York City, January 27, 1912. Mr. Frost vis- ited California in 1898, and at that time be- came widely and favorably known to many of the bird students on this coast. SHALL CALIFORNIA HAVE A "NO-SALE OF AMERICAN DUCKS" LAW ? The report of an Ohio State Senate Com- mittee for 1857, contains the following: "The passenger pigeon needs no protection. Wonderfully prolific, having the. vast forests of the North as its breeding grounds, travel~ ing hundreds of miles in search of food, it is here today and elsewhere tomorrow, and no ordinary destruction can lessen them or be missed from the myriads that are yearly produced." Note the following from the same report: "The snipe needs no protection. It does not breed in Ohio, but merely tarries a while in its migration to the breeding grounds in the extreme North. The snipe, too, like the pig- eon, will take care of itself, and its yearly numbers cannot be materially lessened by the gun." . After the few years which have elapsed since then, we are in a position to realize how short-sighted the American people have been in the matter of adequate and timely protec- tion of wild life. It is furthermore clearly apparent that the reason for this lack of fore- sight has been the easy but erroneous belief in the inexhaustibility of our wild game. But why discuss a matter so clear to every one? In the official "Hearings" (1912) before the United States Senate Committee on Forest Reservations and Game, to which the McLean bill providing for Federal protection of mig- ratory birds was referred, our own Senator Perkins (California) said: "On the Pacific Coast they say game birds are increasing." Suggestions heard from other quarters in- dicate the prevailing dense ignorance con- cerning this important matter. Competent testimony from many points in the state has it that every game bird, with the exception of quail in certain localities, is rapidly de- creasing in numbers. The ducks are going down with such speed that two species, the Red-head and Wood' Duck, are now facing extinction. All this while the Army of Destruction is'increasing; means of rapid transit from city to hunting grounds are being perfected; shot guns are becoming continually more highly efficient killing machines; and the waste land suitable to wild life is becoming more and more re- stricted. New York and Massachussetts now pro- hibit absolutely the sale of American-killed wild game of any kind. Shall we in Califor- nia put through a law of this kind, or shall we be listed with those other states and coun- tries in the "It might have been" column? Every Cooper Club member should realize that the cause is one which issues a pointed challenge to every nature~lover. What can