BIRD NOTES AFIELD 



yet how little do the multitudes of men who cross and recross 

 the water know or care about them! But these birds of the 

 bay shore are well worth knowing, so full of strange ways 

 they are, so different from the happy creatures of field and 

 grove. Many of them are relics of earlier and cruder forms 

 of life, telling of nature's slow and painful march of progress. 



See that grebe with its bill fashioned into a long, sharp, fish 

 spear, its curious, lobed feet, its slender neck and small head, 

 its oily, white breast and furtive manners. I cannot imagine 

 any one growing fond of such a creature as this. Handle it 

 and it smells of fish. Then turn from the water to the low 

 growth of buckeyes on yonder point. A song-sparrow is sing- 

 ing in the thicket. What a human little fellow he is, modest 

 and friendly, full of good cheer, gentle in his ways and in- 

 telligent in his bearing. In these two species we see types of 

 the lowest and highest of North American birds. 



There are a number of land birds which live about the bay 

 shore and which we cannot fail to see during our day's rcimble. 

 Down among the marsh-grass and along the very shores of the 

 bay flock the interesting Bryant's sparrows. They belong to 

 an obscurely colored genus, known as the savanna-sparrows, 

 which are widely distributed over North America, and differ 

 locally in trivial variations of size and intensity of coloration. 

 All are buffy or brownish gray in color, streaked with blackish 

 or brownish markings. The under parts, which are also 

 streaked, are generally white in tone, and the edge of the wing 

 and a line above the eye are yellowish. The savanna-spar- 

 rows are rather small, slender birds, with long wings and short 

 tails. Bryant's sparrow is a local variety inhabiting the salt 

 marshes of San Francisco Bay, and distinguished from other 



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