IN THE ESTERO 



and again looked about. "Is everything safe 

 here ? No enemy in sight ? " it might have been 

 asking. Assured upon that point, it began dress- 

 ing its feathers after its flight, which not unlikely 

 had been a long one, while I, glass in hand, was 

 cautiously drawing near enough to name it ; the 

 caution consisting solely of extreme slowness, 

 motion as near to no motion as my native human 

 awkwardness could make it, since the space be- 

 tween us was as level as a billiard-table, and 

 offered not so much as a blade of grass as a 

 means of cover. 



To my relief the bird gave no sign of resent- 

 ing my advances ; and a step or two at a time, 

 shuffling along with no unnecessary lifting of the 

 feet, I presently came close enough for my twelve- 

 power glass to make out its points with all need- 

 ful distinctness. A marbled godwit it proved to 

 be, a migrant that shows itself none too often 

 here, though at San Diego, on the bay shore in 

 winter, I have seen godwits and willets together 

 lining the grassy edge of the flats for a long dis- 

 tance, and so densely massed that I mistook 

 them at first for a border of some kind of herb- 

 age. Thousands there must have been ; and when 

 they rose at my approach, they made something 

 like a cloud ; gray birds and brown birds so con- 

 trasted in color as to be discriminated beyond 

 45 



