The M^ater-fowl of the Pacific Coast 563 



all here in thousands of lines of gray and brown, 

 threading the lines of white and black, ever wind- 

 ing over miles of mud. Godwits by the hundred 

 trot here and there, in tawny robes like those of 

 the curlew, the difference in their straight bills 

 being hardly noticeable at any great distance, 

 while sandpipers of many sizes, in pepper-and- 

 salt, gray, brown, and their various mixtures, scud 

 here and there on legs filmy with speed or whisk 

 about on nebulous wing. Here are noisy tattlers 

 by the score, looking as happy as if these shores 

 were all the world, rising into occasional flight 

 and putting on great airs only to descend again 

 to plain mud. And here are dowitchers by the 

 thousand, looking often like the lovely Wilson's 

 snipe to the eye of the tenderfoot, and sanderlings, 

 whose black and ashy tints mingled with red, 

 with their shorter bills and legs, make them look 

 like plover and willets, with colors quite as gamy, 

 but longer of leg and neck and more noisy. And 

 mingled with these is the glossy ibis, whose dark 

 greenish bronze shines so brightly in the strong 

 sunlight that streams through this dry air; and 

 the big white wood-ibis often rises into the vault 

 of heaven, on sailing wing, to circle among the 

 sand-hill cranes and pelicans, with even greater 

 grace, as they look down upon the vast throng 

 of birds that dot the shining mud for many a 

 league. 



