. The birds of California : a complete, scientific and popular account of the 580 species and subspecies of birds found in the state. Birds; Birds. The Spotted Sandpiper Taken in Modoc County business there besides looking in the mirror, we could not suppose that he is altogether insensible to the flattery of the smooth-flowing stream. It is for this reason, perhaps, that he prefers the vicinity of quiet inland or upland waters; and it is this also—what else?—that tempts him to make from time to time little horizontal excursions, or loops, of flight out over the river or placid lake. If fright


. The birds of California : a complete, scientific and popular account of the 580 species and subspecies of birds found in the state. Birds; Birds. The Spotted Sandpiper Taken in Modoc County business there besides looking in the mirror, we could not suppose that he is altogether insensible to the flattery of the smooth-flowing stream. It is for this reason, perhaps, that he prefers the vicinity of quiet inland or upland waters; and it is this also—what else?—that tempts him to make from time to time little horizontal excursions, or loops, of flight out over the river or placid lake. If fright- ened, as by a boatman, the bird may patter along the muddy brim, or remove by short flights, but sooner or later he puts off from shore, edges out over the water, wheels about in a great circle, and draws near his starting point again, in a graceful curve which regards the shore as a sort of asymtote—this on wings held stiffly, or quivering with emotion. Peet-weet would be a second choice for a name, even though these petty syllables quite fail to express the emotional, vibrant qualities of the bird's cries, or the ringing clear- ness with which they resound from shore to shore. Peeet weet, weet, weet, weet! What "naturalized" Califor- nian has not heard that endearing sound coming most unexpectedly from a river-bar in some wild canyon of the Sierras, or from the edge of some emerald lake nestling in the embrace of snow-banks? What! our little Peet-weet up here? How different these from the sluggish waters of the Piscataqua, or the prosaic shores of Bullhead Lake. Yet the voice is the same,—amiable, alert, sweetly piercing, authentic. It is the same bird, too, a fellow Easterner quite at home in this giddy, awful West. "Tip-up," or Teeter-tail, comes next, and the California bird is as little restrained in his actions by the presence of frowning Sierras as he was by the laughing birches of Vermont. Here, too, he has the never-ending habit of teeter


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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1923