A CALIFORNIA BEACH 



catches sight of you from afar ; and up goes its 

 voice, sharp as a razor and loud enough to rouse 

 the neighborhood. Now here, now there, it runs, 

 flies, and stands still by turns, screaming more 

 and more wildly, till its voice literally breaks into 

 shivers ; and, although you know better, you be- 

 gin to think that for once the creature must be 

 in some real trouble. Such agonizing, broken- 

 hearted shrieks cannot be all a make-believe. 



And then of a sudden silence falls upon the 

 scene. Nothing has happened ; all things remain 

 as they were ; but for this time the play is played 

 out. 



There is no bird of my acquaintance for which 

 I entertain so hearty a dislike. "Animosity," I 

 was on the point of writing, but that seems an 

 undignified expression as between a man and a 

 plover. I should be sorry to have the species 

 exterminated, but so far as my daily beat is con- 

 cerned I would cheerfully see its numbers dimin- 

 ished by nine out of ten. 



Yet I remember the time in my Eastern days 

 when the sight of a killdeer was cause for loud 

 rejoicing, and its harshest cry a kind of music. 

 Then it was a novelty ; once in many years by 

 some accident it came in my way ; and rarity will 

 always insure a welcome, or, at the worst, tolera- 

 tion. There is here and there a man (I can im- 

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