in person, I asked one of the senior resident members of the Cooper Club, a man justly renowned both as an observer and student of California bird-life, to report on conditions there during the past two years. His reply-just to hand, is frank and illuminating: "I know no more of the Phalacrocoraxes on Seal Rocks, off the Golden Gate Park here, than a cat does of catachresis, more's a pity! I do not get out to the ocean shore once in two years * * * At Pigeon Point, Point Lobos, and the rocky islands around Monterey Bay they breed in numbers, as you most probably are aware, but when it comes to Seal Rocks right under my nose, as it were—you have me guessing."
Now if I had any thought that this veteran brother would take offense (he is rather fond of "ragging" the rest of us, by the way) I should not publish this inquiry. But knowing him for a game sport, I shall not scruple to point my moral. I am honestly desirous of learning something definite about this wonderful living "habitat group" of breeding Cormorants (to be reproduced in effigy by the California Academy of Sciences at great expense, and installed at only a few furlongs remove from this real example). Doubtless if I had the addresses of some few of the tens of thousands of tourists who have gazed in wonder and admiration at this ebony pageant exhibited upon your very doorstep, visitors who, as you boast, come flocking from every clime of the habitable globe, I should learn what I need to know about your Shags. But I appeal to you, dwellers by Niagara, twenty of you (fifty-seven in the Bay Cities), if the Cooper Club lists are correct, your very faces wet daily by the spray struck off from the surf dashing on the Seal Rocks, what do you know about these birds? This is the year you have invited us to share your hospitality, to view your charms, to taste your fare, to pass judgment upon your vaunted achievements, to decide, it may be, whether we will abide with you. We are coming, ourselves a human Niagara, ten thousand thousand strong. In particular, we of the Cooper Club and American Ornithologists' Union are coming half a thousand strong. Are you prepared to receive us? Are you ready to guide us? If we grant you absolution for voluntary ignorance of the presumed banalities of the always "famous" Seal Rocks, will you show us instead the feathered treasures of Stow Lake, and Muir Woods, and Mt. Tamalpais, and Mill Valley, and San Bruno, and Wild Cat Canyon? Or will you leave us to suppose (very incorrectly) that the immediate setting of the Bay Cities is destitute of avian attractions? "The Farallon Islands", yes! and "Lake Tahoe", by all means! But let us also view you at home. We are coming to see San Francisco's Niagara.
Santa Barbara, California, December 10, 1914.
BIRDS OBSERVED ON FORRESTER ISLAND, ALASKA, DURING THE SUMMER OF 1913[1]
By HAROLD HEATH
WITH EIGHT PHOTOGRAPHS AND ONE DRAWING BY THE AUTHOR
(Contribution from the Department of Zoology, Stanford University, California)
IN THE latter part of April, 1913, the writer was appointed to conduct a biological survey of the Forrester group of islands, Alaska, under the joint auspices of the United States Fish Commission and, the National Associa-
- ↑ Printed by permission of Doctor Hugh M. Smith, United States Commissioner of Fisheries.
