The American Avocet 



Taken in Merced County Photo bv the Author 



THE BELT OF ORION 



The requirements of the Avocet and of its still more curious fellow 

 wader, the Black-necked Stilt, are somewhat exacting. They require con- 

 siderable stretches of shallow water as a field of operations, and low- 

 lying islands, or mud reefs, for nesting, where they may at least be free 

 from the depredations of wolves and wild-cats. If to these be added bor- 

 dering stretches of pasture land or alkaline waste, and diversification of 

 cattails and tules in the deeper waters, so much the better. These condi- 

 tions are fairly met on the shores of a dozen of our larger lakes, Tulare, 

 Honey, Klamath, and the rest, but best of all in the grazing country tribu- 

 tary to the Mendota Canal system, and, typically, at Los Banos in Merced 

 County. Certain great stretches in this region are annually flooded with 

 the excess of the Sierran snows, and the flooding is controlled in a sort 

 of alternating rhythm to provide forage for the cattle of the great Miller 

 and Lux Corporation. The magic touch of water following its expected 

 channels quickens an otherwise barren plain into a paradise of avian 

 activities. Ducks of six or seven species frequent the deeper channels; 

 Coots and Gallinules and Pied-billed Grebes crowd the sedgy margins of the 

 ponds; Herons, Bitterns, Ibises, and Egrets, seven species of Herodiones, 



1194 



