The Marbled Godwit 
Taken in Santa Barbara Photo by the Author 
“THE SANCTIMONIOUS GODWITS” 
bunch—rise above the skyline, and I without time to get into action. 
In the fourth “picture” the camera does the talking and there really 
is nothing to say. The time was May 4, 1914, and the place Santa Bar¬ 
bara, within hail of a policeman. As we bowled along the East Boulevard 
we sighted two great, innocent Godwits feeding at the water’s edge, where 
the beach is narrowest. They were letting two pedestrians pass at fifty 
feet, so we whirled about, unlimbered the camera, drove up alongside the 
curbing and opened fire from the auto. Then I made advances on hands 
and knees, or bellywise, in studious humility. Half scared, half curious, 
the birds retreated slowly, but I succeeded in getting within twenty feet 
of them on two occasions. The Godwits must have thought me a silly 
fellow, kowtowing to their prairie-bred majesties in such abject fashion. 
Or perhaps I was the great California Badger, of which they had heard. 
All right; we are willing to be all things to all birds, if by any means we may 
photograph some. Behold your servant the sand turtle, the stranded 
merman (Bing!—another exposure), the legless wonder, the omphlopoph- 
agus (Bing!—reverse and change). But the advent of a noisy truck 
occurring in conjunction with my own perigee—or periornis—puts the 
quarry to flight, gently murmuring. 
The Marbled Godwits have suffered much from gunfire, and from 
invasion of their breeding haunts. Formerly nesting as far south as 
Nebraska and Iowa, they are now known as breeders only in a few spots 
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