A CALIFORNIA BEACH 



passing you about, the blue ocean outspread be- 

 fore your eyes, carrying them away and away till 

 the blue heaven drops into it, with seaside ver- 

 benas and lovely constellations of yellow prim- 

 roses overrunning the broken gray-sand wind- 

 rows just beyond the reach of the breakers, with 

 the breath of the sea filling your lungs, and the 

 sun warming your blood, — with all this, and the 

 hours your own, what kind of man must you be 

 not to be glad of living ? 



In the round of the year the beach, with the 

 flats and pools immediately adjoining, is visited 

 — to my own partial knowledge, that is to say ^- 

 by eighty or ninety species of water-birds — 

 waders, swimmers, divers, and the rest. 



Of all these, none are more engaging, or more 

 constant, than the dainty little snowy plovers ; 

 not snow-white, to be sure, but of a shade light 

 enough to render the name sufficiently appropri- 

 ate as such things go. Dainty I call them, and 

 so they are ; but there should be some more ex- 

 pressive word for it, if only I could call it up ; so 

 exceedingly quiet and neat in their dress ; trig, 

 shall I say.' with a few touches of black — ■ 

 complexion-heighteners, "beauty-spots" — on a 

 ground of gray and white. 



Every Eastern bird-student has them in his eye 



9 



