FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



There they stood, each on a boulder, gesticulat- 

 ing and scolding, and to my delight one of them 

 presently dropped into the pool and swam across 

 it. And now my attention was caught by the 

 fact that every time either of them bobbed up 

 and down he winked ! For an instant his dark 

 eye flashed white ! 



The effect was weird, I may truly say comical. 

 A most extraordinary trick it surely seemed, the 

 reason or motive of which I must leave for others 

 to conjecture. For myself, I do not wonder that 

 John Muir, in his prose poem upon the water- 

 ouzel, one of the most supremely beautiful chap- 

 ters ever written about any bird, makes no 

 allusion to this habit. It would have been a jar- 

 ring note. I looked and laughed, till at length the 

 birds flew to the cascade wall, stood there for a 

 minute or two side by side, still bobbing and 

 winking, and then vanished upstream. 



Probably I shall never have a nearer sight of 

 them or of any like them. But how close I had 

 come to missing my opportunity! And how 

 many good things we must all have missed at 

 one time and another, for lack of the one more 

 trial that would have paid us thrice over for all 

 our pains ! 



