FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



I had just lost them, — not entirely to my 

 regret, a stitch in the side, from standing so 

 still and holding the glass so motionless, making 

 me glad of a chance to stretch myself, — when 

 a little flock of smaller black-and-white birds 

 came down the shore, uttering a chorus of rat- 

 tling cries, and seemed to alight among the rocks 

 just north of me. I gave chase, came up with 

 them, and presently discovered that I had found 

 another novelty, — a bunch of black turnstones ; 

 sooty black, an odd and striking shade, and clear 

 white, the whole curiously splashed and mottled, 

 giving them, even with no brown markings, some- 

 thing of the cotton-print, patchwork appearance 

 of our Eastern *' calico-bird." 



I was still felicitating myself upon this run of 

 luck, when on the same rocks I perceived three 

 birds of quite another complexion ; rather plumper 

 and larger than the turnstones, in general of a 

 beautiful slaty-gray color, and of a singular 

 "spotty" look, to use the word that came of itself 

 to my pencil. Without going into particulars as 

 to legs, bill, tail, rump, and so forth, all of which 

 were religiously jotted down, suffice it to say that 

 these I settled upon as probably surf-birds, if, I 

 said to myself, by way of caution, surf-birds are 

 feeders upon rocks. For the birds before me 

 kept persistently close to the water, on what 

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