FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



this that neither power nor spirit is according 

 to size, a consideration as true of birds as of 

 other people. Witness an extreme case, the case 

 of a hummingbird, a mite of flesh no bigger 

 than a lady's thumb. Hatched in Alaska, this 

 enterprising atom will find its way to southern 

 Mexico and back again to its birthplace before 

 it is a year out of the shell. Man is a wonder, 

 especially to himself ; he is even beginning to 

 fly, — and incidentally breaking his neck in the 

 process. But let him look abroad ; and, great as 

 he is, he may see cause to be modest in his 

 boasting. 



Why do the sanderlings travel so needlessly 

 far ? we asked. And can any one tell us why 

 small, frail-looking, weak-seeming bodies like 

 the titlarks, after a winter of content on our 

 Santa Barbara beach, betake themselves, as sure 

 as the spring comes round, to some barren, hur- 

 ricane-swept, almost uninhabitable mountain-top, 

 a thousand miles away .' With a pair of wings, 

 albeit not of the strongest, and the wide world to 

 choose from, why should they settle upon this 

 most forbidding and uncomfortable of all possi- 

 ble dwelling-places ? 



As I watched them, or endeavored to watch 

 them (for neither they nor I could stand still 

 enough really to see each other), on the summit 

 i8 



