FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



(such a commotion should mean something, they 

 considered) sailed into the middle of the lake, re- 

 minding me by their stately movement, one be- 

 hind another in a kind of formal order, of the 

 day not long before when a line of sixteen white 

 battle-ships had steamed into Santa Barbara chan- 

 nel. To my ornithological mind, in its present 

 excited state, one procession seemed scarcely 

 more impressive than the other. 



The following day was spent among the hills 

 behind the city, and at the height of land on the 

 steep, winding trail from Mission Canon over 

 into San Roque Cafion I stopped to breathe and 

 look about me. Laguna Blanca, far below and 

 some miles away, shone as one of the fairest ob- 

 jects in the landscape, and it occurred to me to 

 level the field-glass upon it to see whether by 

 any possibility the swans could be distinguished 

 at that distance. Sure enough, they were dis- 

 tinctly visible, grouped in the middle of the lake, 

 which otherwise, for aught the glass could tell 

 me, might have been entirely deserted, though it 

 was certain that hundreds if not thousands of 

 coots and ducks were resting upon its surface. 

 For showing from afar there is no color to dis- 

 pute with white. 



As I neared the lake the next morning — how 

 could I keep away .' — the swans seemed to be 

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