A Journey Across the Sierras — S. California. 101 
we decided to cunip early, g-et a few hours sleep— then do our 
best to get by. ^^'llilst my partner was trying- to catch a tish 
for supper, 1 look the gun and dog for a walk in the marsh. 
In the tules the Blackbirds were nesting in numbers, their 
curious catlike calls being heard in all directions. From the 
long grass I flushed several Snipe {GaUina,go delicata) three 
or four of which I shot, apparently all birds of the year. They 
are practically indistinguishable from G. gallinago, bwt, I 
think, that their llight is less erratic. This may be due to the 
fact that they arc very seldom fired at. I also saw a pair 
of Greenshanks (Tola/iu.s nebularis). Ridgeway does not men- 
tion these as occurring in the States, but I have seen them on 
Euena Vista and other fresh-water marshes and always in 
pairs. I know the bird well, having shot it iji the Isle of Alan. 
After a supper of Snipe and Surf -fish, we turned in 
for a few hours' sleep, getting under way again at mid-night. 
It was bright moonlight, which was lucky for us, as we found 
the beach at the foot of the mountain heavily strewn with 
boulders, some of large size. It required no small amount of 
skill to pick a way through and over these, and it would have 
been (Uiitc; impossible to do so in a bad light. As it was it 
took us three hours to cover a little more than two miles. 
Day was just breaking when we cleared the mountains and 
halted for breakfast, which we felt we had well earned. Our 
short cut had saved us a fifty mile drive over a hij-h mountain 
pass. While we were breakfasting we were interested in 
watching an Osprey (Pandion haliaetus-carolinensis) fishing in 
the Surf, a sight not often seen in California, where these 
Sea Eagles are rare birds. We twice saw him strike and miss, 
but the third time he secured a fine surf- fish, which he carried 
awaj into the mountains. He may possibly have had an Eerie 
somewhere amongst the mountains. In the clift's we had just 
passed wc saw a colony of Cliff Swallows {P. lunifrons) were 
nesting. They were too far away for us to see whether they 
were nesting in holes or in nests attached to the face of the 
cliff. On the wing they look just like R. domestica. 
After a couple of hours' rest, we resumed our journey 
along the sand. In the low sandhills two varieties of Terns 
were nesting, one large and probably Sterna elegatis the otliei- 
much smaller and probably S. antillarwm. Their eggs were 
