A CALIFORNIA BEACH 



kept my happy eyes on for an hour, was scientifi- 

 cally collected, I regret to say (it was no fault of 

 mine), in the same spot two days later. 



The season of 191 1 seems to have been an ex- 

 ceptionally prolific one in the knot's local calen- 

 dar, as, besides the two which came under my 

 notice, I have heard of as many others. It did 

 me good to see them, rare as they are on the 

 Pacific coast. Very quiet and demure they 

 seemed, mindless of everything except their 

 daily bread ; but creatures that journey on their 

 own wings — not in flocks, but singly — from 

 northern EUesmere Land to southern Patagonia 

 and back again every year must be endowed, 

 not only with physical endurance, but with goodly 

 measures of that higher than physical quality 

 which, in people of our own kind, we denominate 

 as courage, or, more expressively, as pluck. Hats 

 off to them, say I. 



Twice only in three years I have seen a single 

 Northern phalarope playing the role of beach- 

 bird. Simple accidents both occurrences must 

 have been, for at the same time hundreds (and 

 one day a full thousand) were swimming in the 

 shallow pools of the Estero. I say a thousand. 

 There could hardly have been less than that. 

 More th&n two hundred were counted in one 

 small corner, and the total number was conserva- 

 41 



