FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



when he first comes to the " coast," and glad 

 enough I was to find them at home — "perma- 

 nent residents," as the stock phrase is — in 

 goodly numbers here at Santa Barbara, where, 

 after wandering up and down the State, I myself 

 had elected to settle. It is much for a man to be 

 sure of good neighbors. 



Every day they are here, and every day it is a 

 pleasure to watch them ; now running about or 

 standing at rest on the gray, dry sand — too close 

 a match in color for even a hawk's eyes, one 

 would think ; now squatting singly, here, there, 

 and yonder, in the footprints of horses, hardly 

 more than the head showing, one of their pretti- 

 est tricks — you may sometimes see fifty at once 

 cradled in this cozy fashion, for shelter against 

 the wind, or by way of a more comfortable siesta, 

 or, possibly, as affording a measure of conceal- 

 ment ; and now scattered in loose order along the 

 edge of the surf, picking up the day's ration. An 

 extraordinarily light repast this would seem to 

 be, or, like the Israelites' manna, one very easily 

 gathered, seeing how small a share of the day 

 they spend upon it. Nine times in ten you will 

 find them doing nothing, in what looks like a 

 reposeful after-dinner mood, strikingly unlike 

 the behavior of the common run of birds, which 

 seem for the most part to make the daily meal 

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