FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



capital advantage, and still had the birds with 

 me. A lucky fellow, I called myself. 



This was on the 24th of December. Three 

 days later I was fated to witness a far more 

 spectacular display of flight with no such happy 

 termination. 



But meantime, on Christmas morning, it pleased 

 me to hear a friend remark, quite independently 

 of any suggestion of mine, how wonderfully like 

 a fleet of war-vessels the swans looked as they 

 sailed slowly away from us in a majestic, well- 

 spaced line. The comparison, I saw, had not 

 been due to my overheated imagination. And, 

 while we were admiring their stately manoeuvres, 

 one of them suddenly lifted up his voice, and in 

 response to the call two birds dropped out of the 

 sky, a sight to stir the blood of a man who was 

 beholding wild swans for the first time in his 

 life. 



Well, two days afterward, as I just now began 

 to say, I was at the lakeside again, and was dis- 

 appointed to find the flock reduced by more than 

 half — four birds instead of ten. But I need not 

 have fretted, for this was to be by much my most 

 interesting day. Within half an hour, one thing 

 after another having detained me, I heard a 

 volley of loud trumpetings over head, quickly 

 answered from below; and looking up I be- 

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