7 'he Black-bellied Plover 
Taken at Sandyland 
Photo by the Author 
attitude of the bird-lover. The sci¬ 
entist acquires facts; the sportsman, 
experience (of a sort); the artist, 
impressions, or visions of beauty; 
the economist mediates between 
them all and passes sentence of life 
or death; but only your bird-lover 
lives his birds. He it is who enters 
by an effort of sympathy into all 
the aspects of nature, and pro¬ 
nounces them good. He knows. 
The artist, I submit, ought to 
have the first chance to pass judg¬ 
ment on the value of our plovers. 
Be the waters of Santa Barbara 
channel never so blue, as on this 
September day, the shore golden, 
and the air vibrating with conscious 
purity after two thousand leagues of 
matchless ablution, there yet lacks 
something in the vision unless a 
flock of Beetle-heads, splendid, tu¬ 
multuous, is hurrying across the sky. 
The strand, glistening though it 
be with each fresh silvering of the 
refluent wave, is a barren mockery 
unless it may reflect the beauty of 
some Shore-bird. And what more 
haughty image may it give back 
than this plover in his nuptial 
panoply of black? Or what 
more modest and demure than 
the dove-like ‘‘grays” of 
autumn? If it were to paint a 
portrait in the narrowest sense, the painter could hardly do better than 
depict that large, gracious eye, that “beetling,” capable brow, or that 
expression, half naive, half stern, and altogether powerful, which greets 
the fortunate student on an unexploited shore. 
But the sportsman has long claimed this bird for his own. Its 
numbers mark it for the pot, while its increasing wariness invites genteel 
destruction. Sapid its meat unquestionably is, tender, and well-con¬ 
ditioned in the early fall. Its northern residence has assured the bird 
A SPRING PORTRAIT 
i2gi 
