FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



and brought my penciled description to the book, 

 everything taUied, as we say. But the book, for 

 lack of knowledge on the part of its author, it is 

 to be presumed, had nothing whatever to tell me 

 concerning the wandering tattler's feeding-habits. 

 Resort was had by letter to a man who would be 

 able to enlighten me upon that point, and he 

 replied that Heteractitis haunted the rocks, not 

 beaches nor fiats. 



Here, then, was a bird I had never counted upon, 

 an extra, as it were, thrown in for good measure. 

 Two mornings afterward I went through the 

 forest again ; but this time, on reaching the ocean 

 shore, I turned to the left and walked as far as 

 the Seal Rocks, so called, where all Del Monte 

 and Monterey tourists who take the famous 

 seventeen-mile drive (it was one of my good days 

 in California when I first made the round on foot), 

 stop for a minute or two to look at the seals, fifty 

 or more of which, if the tide favors, may com- 

 monly be seen basking in the sun. The largest of 

 the rocks, all of which are a little off-shore, is 

 monopolized by flocks of sea-birds, pelicans and 

 cormorants especially, which have whitened its 

 whole surface down to highwater mark. 



I was looking at this rock, counting the cor- 

 morants and pelicans, and making out as well as 

 I could the identity of the gulls, — the beautiful 

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