Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AN EXCITING FORENOON IT is with birds as with places and people; some are endeared to us by one quality, and some by a different or even an opposite quality. The phalaropes are trustful. They swim about us almost within hand's reach ; we like them for that. Other birds are wary to the last degree; we must match our wits against theirs, or we shall never have them within comfortable eye- reach; and we like them for that, and pursue them the harder. And others, a few, are never so highly appreciated as when we gaze at them afar off. Such are the common carrion-eating vultures, turkey-buzzards we call them; almost disgusting near at hand, but miracles of grace as they float in wide circles far above us under the great blue dome. For me, and I suppose for every one, there is a peculiar satisfaction in coming unexpectedly close upon any shy creature, be it larger or smaller, bird or beast. Thus I recall my sensations a year ago when after standing a long time motionless on the brim of a deep, steeply walled cafion, admiring one of the most beautiful of all our Santa Barbara prospects, I heard something stir just below me, and the next instant saw a wildcat emerge from the chaparral and, oblivious of my proximity, though there was nothing but the air between us, mount a boulder like the one I was myself standing on, and look leisurely about him. Of the same nature, though less startling, is the satisfaction I take in surprising, or, better still, in being surprised by, some more or less ordinary bird at an extraordinarily near range. And this is what befell me yesterday. I had been making my daily morning round of the Estero, and, having been rewarded by nothing out of the common run, was turning cityward, when I bethought myself, as a last resort, to look into one other poo... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.