a put up very inferior grades of cigars, flooding the market with them as Manila makes. At least this is what the Manila manufacturers claim was done, and no doubt it was true, for the writer has purchased cigars in the local market bearing the names of factories in Manila which were either second or third rate houses, or that existed solely in some one's mind. The larger Manila factories, not to exceed half dozen in number, and the only ones. prepared to handle a foreign demand, got together and caused legislation to be enacted by the Philippine legislative bodies making it incumbent upon the collectors of customs to certify to each shipment the genuineness of made through him. That certificate pasted on the outside of the box, near the internal revenue stamp, guarantees you that you are getting a high grade smoke when buying Filipino weeds. In the words of the advertiser: "Look for it and take no substitutes." The new tariff law permitting free entry of Philippine products into this country has its interesting points. In the case of cigars, cigarettes and tobacco the amount of each is limited, is reached and when that amount (150,000,000 in the case of cigars), duty is presumably levied. How the of matter is regulated, with houses importing through our numerit is ous ports, is not known; but known that an individual cannot import a single cigar from Manila for his own use without paying prohibitive duty. scores To offset the free entry of Manila products, it is thought the tobacco interests here are endeavoring to obtain control of some of the better factories in the Philippines. Not long ago, the manager of the La Insular factory, one of the three largest in the city, was offered four millions of dollars for his interest, which sum no doubt included an interest in outlying tobacco fields. At first the offer was refused, but lately this native manager has resigned his position, going into another field entirely, while an American has assumed the superintendency of the big plant. The inference is, of course, that the deal was made in spite of the open refusal. The Germinal factory, established since American occupation, and founded and financed solely by Filipinos, is probably the largest factory to-day in the Islands. The old building is four stories high, and covers an area equal Improbably to two or more acres. mediately after the passage of the new tariff law plans were launched and are now succeeding rapidly for building a million dollar reinforced concrete addition to the plant. When this is done, the Germinal will loom up like a giant in comparison to its competitors, and it may excel in size and output any other similar institution in the world. The turn-over of cash for advertising purposes through the press before American occupation of Manila did few hundred pewell if it exceeded are sos in a year. Now, the Spaniards, the natives, and the Europeans strive to outdo the Americans in the use of printers' ink. Thousands of pesos are spent monthly for publicity. But the cigar factories have a more effective way of reaching the peasantry, a class not much given to reading, even their own dialect. Every time there is a church fiesta (and one per week can be figured on), and during the carnival season, automobile loads of cigars thrown helter and cigarettes skelter by the big factories into the scrambling throng. Hence, if Juan Gomez, the John Jones of nativedom, happens in the melee to grab a box of ten-centers, whereas he has been used to nothing better than cigarettes all his life long, he is pretty apt to remember the donating factory when buying a pack of cigarillos, as he does daily so long as he lives. The large factories vie with the government officials and society in general in entertaining visitors of prominence. They do their entertaining in no half-hearted way, shutting down the plant and laying a festal board in the midst of the machinery that would cause a gourmat to come on the run. William Jennings Bryan, the Duke of Abruzzi, President Taft, and a lot of other notables, have thus been wined and dined. And none perhaps were sorry for it. Who would be when a dinner designed for a prince is topped off with a weed retailing at a dollar each. No doubt Bill, and the Commoner, and the Duke thought, as the smoke wound about their appreciative heads, what a shame it is that "The weed, delicious plant, by all the world consumed, Pity, thou, like man, to ashes, too, art doome-." AT THE RANCHO GONZALES Yes, a woman's traceable for lots of things. 'Twas only for a woman young Fitz-Hugh, Mary Stuart's only cousin, friend of princes by the dozen All for a Vassar girl down in Lagrame. And I passed old Sanchez' broncho as I came, Tied yonder to the cemetery post. It's only for a woman that he's there. Poor Sanchez never'd marry twice, like most. An' 'twas only for a woman joshin' Nelse Went grievin' in Socorro-town one night! We was rollin' glasses over, like a steer in knee-deep clover An' 'twas only for a woman Longhorn Pete- Fought and fought his longings hazy, though it well-nigh turned him crazy, An' now he goes most all year without a shot! And when you see him with his little tot An' what a woman done with such a cuss And it's only for a woman that I'm here, Where the hacienda porch is archin' low Where Dolores' eyes are dancin', in the moonlight softly glancin', And I wonder if she'll shake me-tell me no? What's that you say, mi dulce?-Whisper low Would she have a fresh young gringo?-Ah, things even, With your arms around my neck, my girl, I know It's only for a woman, but-it's Heaven! BY AURELIA M. MICHENER. Birds of the Western Marshes By Henry Meade Bland W 'HEN the month of September came in the old time, the primitive Indian around San Francisco Bay watched the sky over the Oakland range of hills with a strange, excited interest. The summer fogs had now ceased, and the sky all day was clear blue. Suddenly, in his vigil, the hunter's keen ear heard, even before he could see the flyer, the deep, clear, musical hondernote dropping from the blue, and he knew his feathered friends had come. At the sight of the wide bay stretches, inviting tules and inlets, the long Vshaped column broke, and down the newcomers shot, with wings extended, dropping sidewise like arrows. All day the emigrants came, until there was not a fresh water pond, marshy stream or cove of the bay but was tenanted by thousands of fluttering beauties. Every Indian who had a bow and arrow was alert for the hunt. The geese were not very wild then, for there were no heavily loaded shotguns or automatics to mow them down by the hundreds; yet the red man must stalk the birds with extreme care to get close enough to land his arrow on a single bird. No more Indian hunter now; and the great honker has gradually retreated from his loved bays and islands, coming only one day in the fall to look over the range into the cities which occupy his lost Eden. Now and then as of old a flock catches sight of the soft waters of Lake Merritt of the East Bay marshes, but the old gander leader sees the many signs of his ancient bitter enemy, the white man, screams his warning, and leads his younger companions back over the range to the safe fresh pastures and waters of the San Joaquin. The wild Snowy goose comes South a little later than his gray brother and returns North earlier. This splendid bird prefers flight in windy weather, and when a heavy norther blows in midwinter over the Sacramento tules, it rises in myriads and veers and tacks in the face of the wind. At this time it is an easy prey to the hunter, who places himself off a tule headland in the line of flight and drops many a striking specimen. This goose, however, is not so edible as the gray. Its pure white coat tipped on the wings with black, and the rich, heavy white down on its breast make it a prize for its feathers; while its clear, high tenor note easily distinguishes it from its brethren. Like the gray goose, it has great range of size. A big gander, guarding a flock whose number was legion, while I once peeked over the knoll behind which I had crawled for a shot, seemed to me as large as a swan; while the smallest of his charge was little larger than a mallard. The little fellows are known to ornithologists as "lesser snowy," while the splendid leader was a "larger snowy." It is not long after September that the migrating ducks, too, have returned from their breeding places in Northern North America; and the home-breeding ducks have safely. raised their broods among the tule pools. And these with the swarms of Brant and Canada geese make California the most treasured land of the hunter. California has two great hunting grounds, the bay marshes and the tules of the Sacramento and San Joaquin. On the careful conservation of these depends not only the sport of the hunter, but the lives of the bird-tribes; for it must be remembered that all game animals and birds, as a country becomes thickly settled, meet, unless protected, with extermination, which may be accomplished by the survival of a few desirable forms in domestication. Those birds which migrate to the comparatively uninhabited far North are safer from destruction than those which breed at home. Thus the Mallard, which nests in the grainfields or in the tall grass near the water, and which a score of years ago was one of the most abundant of game birds, is now the scarcest. This bird is easily domesticated. Many a California farmer boy of the valleys remembers catching a whole nest of gentle half-feathered mallards, and keeping them till they have eluded his vigilance and have flown to the tules. The green-winged teal nests safely on the islands, and by the lakes of Northern North America; while the exquisite little Cinnamon teal breeds in our own tules and marshes. These two teals are to be distinguished from each other mainly by the color of feet -those of the former being bluishgray, while the latter have red feet. The Spoonbill or Shoveller is a home breeder, and because of poor protection is a scarce duck; while the Sprig breeds only sparsely in our marshes. The American Widgeon also nest at home; but the Canvasback, one of our choicest and most abundant ducks, does not breed in Central California. The Buffle-head, or Hell-diver, whose chief service to the hunter is to furnish him with a duck when he has failed to bag the finer varieties, is an emigrant; and consequently there is scarcely a marsh pond or tule lake which in the hunting season does not reveal him. This highly-colored bird is the most expert in diving of all the ducks except the Ruddy Duck, and can bring his food from very deep water. Both of these are excelled as a diver only by the strange little grebe which, as a hunter knows, is the hardest of all the water-birds to get with shot. The grebe, which, however, is not a duck, and is wholly unfit for food, has a strange fascination for the hunter, who lies quiet in his blind and watches the little fellow rise for a breath, then drop under the water's surface as if he were a dissolving picture. He is fabled to be so quick of sight that he is safe under water between the gun-flash and the strike of the shot. The grebe is a home-breeder. In the deepest tule pools, the mother bird builds a raft, fastens it to a reed or tule, and piling it with other reeds till the nest-raft rises two or three inches above the water, lays her eggs, which seem to be incubated partly by her own body's heat and partly by the heat of the decaying green mass of the nest. Of the four wading birds, the rail (California Clapper), the snowy plover, the misnamed "English snipe," and the Curlew, the former two raise their young on our own marshes; while the latter two emigrate to the North. The rail easily falls a prey to the hunter with a dog, while the plover's habit of returning to circle in sympathy around the bird of the flock that is wounded, results often in the killing of the greater part of the flock. These two birds, therefore, will always need careful protection. The rail is easily secured by the dog from its hiding place in the tules when he rises and lumbers along on wings like an awkward spring chicken. So he is an easy mark. He is the clown of the marsh, for his queer antics when he walks or swims are laughable. He delights in running up and hiding in the deep, narrow sloughs of the salt marshes and will wade with only his head out to conceal himself. But at high tide he can scarcely escape the hunter who knows his habits. One who hunts much on the marshes soon finds that he has an interest in the feathered tribe other than those used for the table. Perhaps it is the long line of white pelicans flying in line so straight that surveyor's instruments could find no sway or curve. And |