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 THE. C9?tB.R Volume XV January-Februar', 191 Number I GLIMPSE OF SURF-BIRDS By WILLIAM LEON DAWSON WITH SiX PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR HAT we do not know about the Surf-bird (ztphriza virgata) would fill one of those dumniy rows entitled "The .Complete Works of Xanedu") in a Wernicke bookcase. 'Diiguise it as modestly as you will, if you have ever seen one you contrive to let your friends know of it the first day, and you fall to wondering the day after whether that Surf-bird story wouldn't bear repeating. Anyhow, I'd had my luck last fall, when three of a flock of five fell before our impulsive guns--better luck than I deserved, for while Howell exult- ed (really, you know, he yelled like a Comanche), I sat on the wet sand and hat- ed myself for having used a g'un instead of the camera--an unpardonable lapse into barbarism ! But coals of fire were heaped upon my head when on the 3rd of May last I thrust it cautiously over the crest of the beach bluff at La Patera, near Santa Barbara, California, and saw on a nearby reef, not a mere handful, but a large company of mingled shags and Surf-birds. The cormorants rose hurriedly and after them the Aphrizids, but the latter settled again while we accomplished a long detour which brought us up, panting, behind a line of rocks substantially on a level with our prizes. I snapped hurriedly at I5O feet, then set out more care- fully to make a series of photographic approaches. First, I crept on hands and knee across the upper beach to a jutting rock which offered a little shelter; then advanced by slow stages in a direct line. What matter though the sand was wet and plastered here and there with blobs of crude oil! Were they not Surf-birds! Ever and again I snapped. At the sixty-foot range a jealous wave engulfed me as I squatted Turk-fashion upon the sands. No matter. It would not do to put the cause to hazard, by rising. "Snap" went the latch, and "roar" went the shut-