A CALIFORNIA BEACH 



I remember successive weeks and months in 

 Massachusetts during the cooler season when it 

 was almost impossible to hit upon a day at the 

 seashore in which the air would be still enough 

 to leave a man's eyes clear for nice ornithological 

 observation through a field-glass. Here, taking 

 the twelve months together, there may be ten 

 or twelve hours, mostly at night, of a really 

 smart gale, and as many half-days of a moder- 

 ately brisk wind, truly moderate, but extremely 

 disagreeable, if one must be out of doors, by 

 reason of the dust it raises. For the rest of the 

 time the strongest movement will be a lazy 

 breeze (two or three, or possibly five or six, 

 miles an hour), barely sufficient, for the most 

 part, to stir the leaves ; and you may walk the 

 beach, or recline upon the sands, be it January 

 or July, with a clear vision and complete animal 

 comfort. 



At all seasons the beach is an unfailing re- 

 source for the stroller. No matter how muddy 

 the country roads may sometimes be in winter 

 (in the adhesive adobe parts of them all but im- 

 passable on foot — I have lost a rubber overshoe 

 in such places more than once), nor how dusty 

 the worst neglected of them may become in 

 summer, the beach is always at our service, since 

 it is a wholesome quality of sand to be rain- 

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