FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



speak of ; great scholars have set our minds at 

 rest upon that point, but by hook or by crook they 

 manage to pick up a bit of information here and 

 there, which is better than nothing ; and by some 

 means or other — by experience, perhaps, or pos- 

 sibly by hearsay, who knows ? — they seem to 

 have ascertained that this is a safe port ; and, 

 the living being good, likewise, here they remain, 

 greatly to my satisfaction. This is in the wintry 

 or non-breeding season. None of them nest here, 

 to the best of my knowledge. 



Summer or winter, autumn or spring, there is 

 always something stirring on the beach or in the 

 Estero. Among shore-birds, especially, the semi- 

 annual migratory movements pretty nearly over- 

 lap each other. This season, for instance (191 1), 

 only seventeen days elapsed between the disap- 

 pearance of the last north-bound flyers — a few 

 northern phalaropes, as it happened — and the 

 advent, on the 5th of July, of the first autumnal 

 south-bound travelers, a small flock of least sand- 

 pipers. 



And by way of illustrating the same point I 

 may cite the case of the sanderlings as observed 

 during the past year. Sanderlings, it should be 

 understood, are natives of the extreme north, 

 their breeding-range, as given by the latest au- 

 thority, being " from Melville Island, Ellesmere 

 16 



