Page:Oregon Geographic Names, third edition.djvu/403

OREGON GEOGRAPHIC NAMES stantial changes in precipitation have produced wide variations in the size of the lake. There has been a good deal of litigation about the ownership of the lake bed. The Malheur Lake region has been one of the most productive of the waterfowl breeding places in western North America. It was formerly a mecca for plume hunters, market hunters and fur trappers. In 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt dedicated the area as a bird refuge. In 1935 the federal government purchased a large part of the old P Ranch in the Blitzen Valley and thus assured the lake of a permanent water supply. The Malheur Migratory Bird Refuge now comprises nearly 160,000 acres of open water, vast tule swamps, wild meadows and wooded areas. Stanley G. Jewett of the Fish and Wildlife Service says: "It ranks first in the number of breeding waterfowl, upland gamebirds, big game and fur bearers. During the fall and spring migrations hundreds of thousands of ducks and geese stop to feed and rest within the refuge. Among the abundant nesting waterfowl to be found are mallards, pintails, redheads, gadwalls, shovelers, cinnamon teal, bluewinged teal and canvasbacks. Canada geese nest abundantly in the meadows and even lay eggs and rear their young on the basaltic rimrocks along the edge of the Blitzen Valley. Here, too, are found nesting each year numbers of sandhill cranes, great colonies of ring-billed and California gulls, Foster's and black terns and white-faced glossy ibis. Malheur Lake marks the northern limit for breeding colonies of American egrets and the black-necked stilts. Long-billed curlews, western willets, avocets and Wilson's snipes are found nesting abundantly in the meadow lands. The heron family is also well represented." Jewett says that about 220 species of birds have been found on and adjacent to the Malheur Refuge. The compiler is prepared to believe the statement, and without reservation he can say that the bird colonies of this area are among the most remarkable things he has ever seen.

, Baker, Grant, Harney and Malheur counties. This stream rises on the southern slopes of the Blue Mountains. The name Malheur River is attached to the main stream which has in the past been known as Middle Fork but which the USBGN recognizes as Malheur River. There is also a North Fork Malheur River which joins the main stream at Juntura and a South Fork which joins the main stream at Riverside. The South Fork and its tributaries undoubtedly at one time drained the Harney Valley, but at the present time there is a low divide between the head waters of South Fork and Malheur Lake. The name Malheur was used by Peter Skene Ogden, a Hudson's Bay Company trader, who made an expedition into the Snake River country in 1825-26. In Ogden's journal, in Hudson's Bay House, appears the following entry: "Tuesday, February 14, 1826–We encamped on River au Malheur (unfortunate river) so called on account of property and furs having been hid here formerly, discovered and stolen by the natives." Ogden was accompanied by French-Canadian hunters. See Ogden's Snake Country Journal, Hudson's Bay Record Society, volume XIII, also article of T. C. Elliott, OHQ, volume X, page 353; volume XI, page 364. Malin, Klamath County.

is a rapidly growing community on land that was formerly at the bottom of Tule or Rhett Lake. Tule Lake bed has been almost entirely reclaimed. On September 30, 1909, 65 Bohemian families settled at the present site of Malin and named the place for a town in Bohemia, Czechoslovakia, their former home. For