FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



when he first comes to the " coast," and glad 

 enough I was to find them at home — "perma- 

 nent residents," as the stock phrase is — in 

 goodly numbers here at Santa Barbara, where, 

 after wandering up and down the State, I myself 

 had elected to settle. It is much for a man to be 

 sure of good neighbors. 



Every day they are here, and every day it is a 

 pleasure to watch them ; now running about or 

 standing at rest on the gray, dry sand — too close 

 a match in color for even a hawk's eyes, one 

 would think ; now squatting singly, here, there, 

 and yonder, in the footprints of horses, hardly 

 more than the head showing, one of their pretti- 

 est tricks — you may sometimes see fifty at once 

 cradled in this cozy fashion, for shelter against 

 the wind, or by way of a more comfortable siesta, 

 or, possibly, as affording a measure of conceal- 

 ment ; and now scattered in loose order along the 

 edge of the surf, picking up the day's ration. An 

 extraordinarily light repast this would seem to 

 be, or, like the Israelites* manna, one very easily 

 gathered, seeing how small a share of the day 

 they spend upon it. Nine times in ten you will 

 find them doing nothing, in what looks like a 

 reposeful after-dinner mood, strikingly unlike 

 the behavior of the common run of birds, which 

 seem for the most part to make the daily meal 

 lO 



