546 The Water-fowl Family 



green and gold threaded with crimson and blue 

 the rains are weaving over the sunny land to the 

 joy of his cousins, and delights only in the tum- 

 bling wave where the beds of kelp have tempered 

 its roughness. He will not even fly over a point 

 of land if he can go around it without too much 

 detour, while a few hundred yards of dry ground 

 seem an absolute bar to his passage. 



What there is about San Diego Bay that 

 pleases this dainty child of the North I never 

 could divine, but the best shooting on the finest of 

 American water-fowl could be had every day 

 when I first went there. The shooting from the 

 shore was especially fine because the sand-spit 

 that forms the bay widens out into the two 

 bodies of land forming Coronado Beach. These 

 were almost divided by Spanish Bight, which ran 

 almost to the ocean, leaving a small strip of sand 

 a few yards wide. This was the only bit of land 

 about this bay over which the birds would fly, 

 and over this they streamed in countless thou- 

 sands at every turning of the tide, following the 

 bight to the bay, thus saving several miles of 

 detour by the mouth of the harbor. 



It seems but a few years since San Diego Bay 

 in winter was a sight for the gods. Almost un- 

 known to the hunter, it was alive with water-fowl 

 from the time the first fleece of the storm-cloud 

 flecked the blue of the summer sky till the nest- 



