42 THE CONDOR Vol. XV some more apparently authentic information which is worthy of recording, furnished me by a person whose name will be withheld for the present. San Luis Obispo was the main out- fitting station for the pigeon hunting during the great flight of 1911-12. One market hunter, shooting for the San Francisco market, killed 280 pigeons under one oak in one day. This same hnnter was shooting every day during the flight, so it can be imagined what a number he must have killed. One dealer in ammunition sold 3500 shot- gun shells for one day's hunt, and. he says that on that day the individuals on this excur- sion brought in 1560 birds. These figures, together with the note previously published in T?z CoNYoR (xIv, 1912, p. 108), will give some idea of the extent of the slaughter. I firmly believe that these figures are not exaggerated, and that they are not far from the truth. Hunters are now reporting a. few pigeous at San Luis Obispo and at Santa Barbara. The first noted each year are termed scouts by the old hunters, who believe that the main army sends scouts on ahead to report ou food conditions. The hunters are looking for an- other big flight this winter. I will be in this country regularly during the comhxg season, and will keep a close watch on this beautiful but apparently doomed bird.?W. LE? No-Sale of American-killed Wild Game.--Readers of T? CoN?o?, and especially members of the Cooper Club, should take every npportunity to correct impressions which arc being distributed broadcast apropos the effect of a "No-sale" law. It has cvcn bccn said that this measure is "class legislation." Laws which perinit the sale of game are, it is true, class legislation of the worst type. They permit a few hun- dred market gunners, and the wealthy hotel and cafc patrons who arc financially able to purchase game to reap the benefits of that which is protected at the instance of all people of the state. They arc also allowing the rapid extermination of our best native species. Every animal which has been allowed to bc exploited for profit has bccn practically ex- terminated. Even tbc whales of the sea arc no exception! Remember the sea otter, the buffalo, the passenger pigeon! To allow of the unlimited sale o? game in California, as Assemblymen Harry Po]s]ey of Red Bluff and Milton Schmidt of San Francisco desire. xvon]d bc to cause its utter cx-- termination within ten years. Letters on file in the California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology indicate that ducks aud gccsc have decreased from fifty to ninety-five per cent in the San Joaquin Valley in the last ten years. We must have No-sale, and we must have it immediately.--W. P. TAYtO?. An Unfortunate Oove.?On Monday, June 17, 1912, near Goose Lake in Modoc County, I found the body of a Mourning Dove which had met death as the result of a very peculiar misfortune. The bird was found on a horizontal beam four inches wide in an old deserted barn. It was facing the wall, i.e., lying cross.?ise of tbe beam, with the tail hanging ove? and dosely hugging the side of the timber, as though its death throes were concerned with main- taining its precarious position. The cause of death was not far to seek. The upper mandible had been ? jammed backward and downward through or be-- ? hind the ramus of the lower one, whence it could not be retracted. Not only so, but skinning showed that the windpipe had been caught and skewered, and pushed forward along with the distended skin
of the menturn. The bird was in a very emaciated
condition, insomuch that the skin was very largely ? adhereut to the flesh, and the eud of the breast- bone touched the 'anus. Tbe viscera ?vere a green mass, which for fear of poisoning we did r? not dissect for sex indication; but the bird seemed recently dead, inasmuch as there was no offensive smell, and .the feathers were firmly in place. More- over, no insect pests had begun to attack it. Mr. Allan Brooks. who has examined the Fig. 8. ? t?oR?t?t? Dov? specimen, is of opinion that its plight was due to a recent head-on collision ?vith a telegraph wire, and cites the example of a Western Chipping Sparrow whose bill was in exactly similar condition save that the wind
