. 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 Dark-bodied Shearwater have heard similar tales of the abundance of ducks; but what with the long prevalence of insensate market slaughter, automatic guns, and the universal madness, we have to speak soberly of thousands now. Your one best chance to see a million birds is to post yourself on some sea-cliff, any- where from May to October, and to watch for a dark line of hurrying Shearwaters outside of the kelp-beds, perhaps half a mile or so of
. 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 Dark-bodied Shearwater have heard similar tales of the abundance of ducks; but what with the long prevalence of insensate market slaughter, automatic guns, and the universal madness, we have to speak soberly of thousands now. Your one best chance to see a million birds is to post yourself on some sea-cliff, any- where from May to October, and to watch for a dark line of hurrying Shearwaters outside of the kelp-beds, perhaps half a mile or so offshore. It is a mere chance, then, for Shearwaters hunt in great hordes, and the main host may be operating anywhere between Baja California and Alaska. The hunting organization of the Shearwaters is a great revolving ring, most nearly comparable to that of a meteoric host, say the Leonids, which, though most abundant at one point of their enormous orbit, are, nevertheless, strung out with substantial uniformity over the whole of the remaining circuit. The whirling ring of birds drifts north or south with a movement as certain and imperceptible as the "secular drift" of the stars. The circle may be a comparatively small one, so that you can see the returning line, the other side of the circle, a mile or so farther out to sea; or it may be very large, as much as twenty-five miles in diameter, so that the observer on shore has the impression of a single stream of birds moving parallel to the shore, and sometimes occupying days in passage. Nevertheless, there is a point somewhere upshore where the line bends away and passes out to sea, to accomplish in due order the return movement of the gigantic succession. The line itself varies from a thin ribbon, which one may easily count,. Taken near Santa Barbara 2002 MASSING. AND SWIMMING RAPIDLY Photo by the Author. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for re
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Photo credit: © Library Book Collection / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1923
