A CALIFORNIA BEACH 



who has never collected anything more than 

 postage-stamps, or street-car transfers, they re- 

 turned to the city in high spirits. 



My own feelings were naturally of a more sub- 

 dued and mingled sort. It was a pleasure to add 

 so fine a bird, one of the very few North Ameri- 

 can species whose breeding-grounds are still un- 

 known, to my local notebook collection, which I 

 could not have done but for the killing ; and I 

 sympathized warmly with my companions in their 

 unexpected fortune. (*'I never dreamed that I 

 should ever see one," said the youngest of the 

 trio, half to himself, as we drove homeward; and 

 none of them could talk of much else.) But I 

 sympathized at the same time with the poor 

 creatures at the other end of the gun. They had 

 fallen martyrs to science, and their death was 

 painless. Perhaps they had little to complain of. 



But I enjoyed an interview with a little flock 

 of their kind far more, and came away from it 

 with a better taste in my mouth, a few years ago, 

 about the rocks on the ocean shore at Pacific 

 Grove, where the deadliest weapon the birds had 

 to face was a too inquisitive field-glass. 



There is life yet in the homely old saying, 

 "Let the shoemaker stick to his last." A man 

 who relucts at killing fishes was never born to 

 be a bird-collector. 



