AN EXCITING FORENOON 



stir just below me, and the next instant saw a 

 wildcat emerge from the chaparral and, oblivious 

 of my proximity, though there was nothing but 

 the air between us, mount a boulder like the one 

 I was myself standing on, and look leisurely 

 about him. 



Of the same nature, though less startling, is 

 the satisfaction I take in surprising, or, better 

 still, in being surprised by, some more or less 

 ordinary bird at an extraordinarily near range. 

 And this is what befell me yesterday. 



I had been making my daily morning round 

 of the Estero, and, having been rewarded by no- 

 thing out of the common run, was turning city- 

 ward, when I bethought myself, as a last resort, 

 to look into one other pool, in which I had occa- 

 sionally found something of interest. 



Here, as throughout the Estero, a goodly 

 number of Western sandpipers were feeding, 

 and near them was a comparatively infrequent 

 and therefore better-appreciated visitor, a single 

 yellow-legs, or telltale. 



This I saw at a glance was of a medium size, 

 neither one thing nor another, as I expressed it 

 to myself, so that I was uncertain whether to 

 take it for a small example of melanoleucus or a 

 large example oiflavipes, these being two species 

 of the genus Totanus which differ only in the 

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