FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



Take down the Check-List and open it at ran- 

 dom. You are pretty sure to strike something 

 worth while, something that will at least admin- 

 ister a fillip to the imagination or the memory. 

 Here, for instance, is Trudeau's tern. What 

 about it ? You have never seen one, for you 

 have no collection, and even if you had, seeing a 

 bird's skin is hardly to be accepted as seeing the 

 bird. And you read that its home is on the 

 southern coast of South America, that it breeds 

 in Argentina, and that it has twice been found 

 in the United States, once on Long Island and 

 once (where the type specimen was taken — the 

 bird, that is, from which the species was origin- 

 ally described and named) at Great Egg Harbor, 

 New Jersey. 



It is among the possibilities, your pardon being 

 begged, and ours being a sizable country, that 

 you have never so much as heard of Great Egg 

 Harbor ; but henceforth, if your memory is any- 

 thing like Macaulay's, the name will have a cer- 

 tain interest for you. "Great Egg Harbor.?" 

 you will say, if you chance to read of a murder 

 or a robbery committed thereabout (such cheer- 

 ful events being the staple of telegraphic news), 

 " Great Egg Harbor, New Jersey.? Oh yes, that's 

 where the first Trudeau tern known to science, 

 was captured, in 1838." And perhaps, though I 

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