1909.
Oct. 1 [October 1, 1909]
(No 4)
As a matter of fact I attempted none, partly
because of the difficulty of making even the roughest
kind of count from the swiftly moving train but chiefly
because I did not realize, until it was too late, that
the vast concourse of birds which greeted our eyes when
we first came in sight of the sands would prove to
be practically continuous for a distance of at least seven
or eight miles. Had I anticipated this fact I should
have at least tried to approximate their total numbers by
the familiar method of making counts over limited areas and
multiplying the average unit obtained in this way by
the sum of the total area. When we returned over the 
same route late in the afternoon the flats were covered
deeply with water. Strange to say there were fewer instead
of more, birds in the grassy field and pastures at this 
hour than there had been in the forenoon when the flats