The Baird Sandpiper 
until twenty feet, and then fifteen, becomes the permissible range. The 
bird is perfectly aware of my presence, and keeps a watchful eye in my 
direction. Often it pauses to study my conduct—most exemplary, I 
swear—and several times it has resented my too ardent wooing either by 
flitting to a little remove or else by endeavoring to double on its tracks. 
It could as easily desert the scene outright, but it seems held by some 
subtle sense of companionship, or by some feeling of safety in this pres¬ 
ence. “This great creature with the black box in his arms is, no doubt, 
like myself, a migrating bug-hunter, pausing momentarily on the shores 
of time.” 
Of course I was working my special graft all this while. For the last 
two plates 1 swung around heedless of the engulfing wave, and took the sea¬ 
ward aspect of my little protege. This also seemed as it should be—to the 
long of leg belong the deeper prizes—and the piper clung to its chosen line 
of research, quite undismayed. The birdman, meanwhile, was photo¬ 
graphing down the sun, a rare privilege on this south-sloping shore. 
The marvel of it all stirs one to admiration, and the confidence dis¬ 
played touches a chivalrous chord in the heart. 
“Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong, 
One little sandpiper and I.” 
“You have won my heart, little piper; and I’ll tell the governor that you 
Taken near Santa Barbara 
ONE LITTLE SANDPIPER 
THE COMPANION OF A SEASIDE STROLL 
Photo by the Author 
