SALT-WATER BIRDS. 1 95 



tirely until they reach San Diego Bay. In that 

 and in False Bay three miles north of it they 

 once blackened hundreds of acres of water at a 

 time. Then everything is skipped again for 

 almost two hundred miles, when the Bay of San 

 Quentin is found full of them. This brant mi- 

 grates only at night and over the sea. It despises 

 the land, and will not even cross a small point 

 unless it is very far around. Occasionally at low 

 tide one may be waddling on the mud-flats, but 

 the vast majority never leave the salt water. 



A few years ago these California coast bays 

 were alive with life that made the soft win- 

 ter days spent upon them with a boat a charm- 

 ing recreation. Singly and in flocks pelicans, 

 both white and gray, flapped heavily by, now 

 in a spiral line plunging into the water, then 

 sitting lazily on the surface a moment to 

 swallow the captured fish, then rising again in 

 air to repeat the performance. With lazy wing 

 large white gulls wheeled around your head ; 

 with still slower wing large gray ones lounged in 

 the sunny air, small white ones bustled about, 

 and smaller gray ones displayed still more 

 energy. The merganser and the cormorant 



