AN EXCITING FORENOON 



birds (unusual on the Pacific coast, where the 

 black turnstone mostly replaces them) in more 

 than twenty years. 



After all, as I consider the matter, I see no 

 great reason to lament this bit of forgetfulness. 

 It furnished me with an hour or two of pleasur- 

 able excitement, a thorough waking-up, of a sort 

 not to be enjoyed every day by any means at my 

 time of life. 



But I still ask myself, " How in the world did 

 those birds land, one after the other, at my very 

 feet unobserved?" I cannot believe that they 

 sprang into being there and then, new-made like 

 Adam out of the dust of the earth, a pitch of 

 faith that St. Francis, holy man and greater bro- 

 ther of the birds, would have experienced no 

 difficulty in exercising. 



Perhaps it would be enough to say, though 

 such an explanation may sound ludicrously sim- 

 ple after all the talk I have made about it, that 

 they happened to drop in while my eyes were 

 unconsciously directed elsewhere. It is a com- 

 mon saying among wise men, though little in 

 favor with the vulgar, that the simplest explana- 

 tion is apt to be the truest. 



My morning's adventure brought to mind an 

 incident in no wise connected with ornithology. 

 Many years ago I was present with a small com- 

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