250 
LAND OF SUNSHINE. 
critical will hard!}- fail to rejoice thcit this stran^el 3 ’-min- 
f^led jjfenius has been so dealt with by his fellow-students. 
5ic 
Otis T. Mason, of the U. S. National Museum (in the 
^ June, 1900), calls the collection made by 
Dr. J. W. Hudson, of Ukiah, Cal., “the best scientific col¬ 
lection of basketry known to the writer from any people on 
earth.” And Mr. Mason oug'ht to know. C. F. F. 
Pied Pipers of Santa Barbara. 
BY MARTINETTA KJNSELL. 
HK Santa Barbara sand-piper is a Greek in 
his love for the sea, and, while he is first 
of all an explorer — taking’ in all sorts of 
water-ways, near and far — his homing- 
flights aim true for tidal beaches. In 
summer one can be sure of finding flocks 
of these tin}" waders about the lakes and 
fish-wiers of the upper Santa Ynez ; the 
half dried pools of valley streams — swarming with 
minnows — are favorite picnic grounds for them, while in 
tadpole season ever}- tule swale on the south coast attracts 
myriads of sand-pipers, each flock of forty or fifty keeping 
clannishly to itself and seldom sharing an angling preserve 
with other water-fowl. When, as sometimes happens, an 
inland nurser}^ is selected, it is usually some rush-hidden la¬ 
goon or forsaken marsh full of nice, lonesome bogs coated 
with green mire. There should also be fat shallows below, 
as well as jungles of sharp water-grass and swamp-reeds 
to hide in. Still, our feathered tramp will make shift with 
a barranca in the desert if nothing better offers when the 
whim for tarrying comes on. 
But when and where so man}- young are hatched is a 
mysterv that ornithologists have yet to solve. In all my 
searchings I have seen but one inland nest that I felt sure 
was a sand-piper’s. This one was hollowed in the mud 
close to the edge of an ancient arrastra basin in Piru canon, 
neighboring the Mojave. It was a delightfully lonel}* 
spot, the ruined reservoir — abandoned generations ago 
by its Mexican owners — holding but a few gourdsful 
of stagnant water. The bank holding the nest had 
thoughtlessly started a growth of lusty young nettles, and 
their pale green betrayed the pipers, which, precisely the 
hue of the ground, might otherwise have escaped notice. 
Two birds were sitting upon the nest and they crouched 
motionless until I was almost near enough to touch them 
s 
