SOME ROCK-HAUNTING BIRDS 



looked at my distance like bare rocks, not off- 

 shore like those to which the oyster-catchers 

 restricted themselves, nor covered with seaweed 

 like those resorted to by the wandering tattlers. 

 Once — but this was on the next day, and there 

 were then four of the birds — they occupied 

 themselves a long time on the face of a rock 

 that inclined seaward, running up into sight as 

 the higher waves chased them, and anon hasten- 

 ing down again as the water receded. 



The turnstones, having a way of their own, 

 fed mostly from rocks nearer land, and between 

 whiles walked about the beach, picking up mor- 

 sels as they went. 



"The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his 

 master's crib" ; and so every kind of bird seems 

 to know where the table is spread for it. 



The surf-birds (as to the identity of which, as 

 well as of the wandering tattlers, I afterwards 

 reassured myself by an examination of skins in 

 the fine collection of the Academy of Sciences, 

 at San Francisco) interested me the more be- 

 cause of an anecdote related to me a good while 

 ago by a friend who for some years had been a 

 bird-collector for the Smithsonian Institution, 

 and in pursuit of his calling had traveled pretty 

 well over the southwestern United States. On 

 one of his trips to the Pacific coast, as I remem- 

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