Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1911-02-02
What Fashion Has Done.

For ten years Mr.. William L. Finley
spent his summers hunting" with the
camera, studying Our rare Western birds,
especially longing to photograph bird
that science calls candidissima. "You
nevaire git dose wife cranes less right
away. Alive seen fousan's dose long
w'ites dey all gone, an old trapper had
warned him. Mr.. Finley's experience in
Oregon are described in the Atlantic
Monthly.
The white-heron colony at Clear Lake
had been shot out in advance of us in
1905. One of the cowboys told me he
had heard "poppin' like Chiny New
Year festival" along TuIe Lake
II was hoping against hope to find a
white heron in this locality, but we set
out down Lost River TO see what we
could find. We poIed on down the lake
until we came to the wreck OF an old
cabin.
The shells and feathers scattered about
the ashes of the campfire told me it was
where grebehunterS had camped.
Fifty feet from there found the skin
ning-place. A square chunk OF wood
had served for chopping-block. | saw
three piles of wings each OF which would
have filled a waSh-tub.
There were the bodies OF dead grebeS
tossed aside after the plumage had been
stripped from their breasts. turned
back, sickened at the sight.
Out through the tuleS where we had
expected to find birds thick in their float
Ing homes, we found deserted nests.
picked up dead grebe chicks that had
climbed out in search of food dead pa
rents could never bring. saw other
homes where young grebes were starving
and burning 10 death in the sun. Gray
chicks were piping family for food.
saw grebe mother that had been
shot and not found by the plume hunters
"a mother lying dead beside her home.
In small bunch of tuleS saw grebe
baby trying to crawl under dead moth
RS wing-cold, helpless, starving. !
can hear him yet.
The year 1898 was eventful in white
heron history on Malheur Lake. Early
in the season two men had arrived to
hunt up and down the lake and the tule
islands.
They saw great fockS OF white peli-
cans, cormorantS, terms, gulls, grebeS and
other birds. They saw white heronS in
slow, stately flight everywhere, and after
several days located the great colony by
the cane-brake. What a sight it must
have been, thousands OF these birds, daz-
zling white in the sun, coming and going
from the feeding grounds
Each home, built up a foot or two from
the surface, had three or four frowsy-
headed youngsters or as many eggs. AT
each end OF the colony plumer sat hid
den in his blind.
AT the first crack OF the gun a great
snowy bird tumbIed headlong near its
nest. As the shot echoed across the lake,
it sounded the doom OF the heron colony.
Terror stricken, on every side white
wings Tapped, till the air was filled.
Shot followed shot unremittingly, but still
the heron mothers came to hover over
the scene of destruction. Mother-loye
was but the lure to slaughter.
BY two O'Clock the days shoot ended
for the hunters to collect the dead and
take the pumeS.
Stripping the plumeS is rapid work-a
slash of the knife across the back, cut
down each side, and swift jerk.
Long after dark the plumerS heard the
steady quacking cIatter Of young herons
crying TO be fed. Far into the night
hoarse croakS sounded over the still lake.
1t argued good shooting tomorrow. In
day and a half the plumers harvested a
crop that yielded twelve hundred dollars.
Malheur has seen many maSSacres, but
none so great as this. In nine days we
saW-two white heronS
am satisfied that OF the thousands OF
white herons formerly nesting on MalheuT
not a single pair of birds is left