Page:CooperBull1(3).djvu/14

 hundred feet, remain motionless for a short time, and then run on again. Their nests are almost invariably situated by the side of a stone, stick or some other object unlike the surroundings; this only occasionally happens with the Terns. The Plovers prefer to be as close to the water as possible, while the Terns are about evenly distributed back to the sage brush. Neither of the two species are so numerous as in former times on the coast of this county. Eggs of the Least Tern have been taken as late as July, but on the 30th no Terns were to be seen at Santa Monica, all having, I suppose, gone southward.  

I begin my narrative perhaps it would be well to state that I live on a fruit farm, three and one-half miles west of Santa Clara. At the back of, and adjoining the orchard is an open field containing about sixty-five acres. One warm morning in August, 1894, I was working in the orchard near the back fence when, glancing up, I beheld two large birds circling and swooping at some object in the grain field. A second glance and I knew that the birds were Golden Eagles. Hastening to the fence I saw that the Eagles were endeavoring to catch a rabbit which was running across the field. He was at this time in the center of the field, and about 200 yards from the fence, toward which he was running.



The Eagles circled above him, at a height of about thirty feet; first one of them would swoop down at the rabbit and then the other; but the result was always the same, for the rabbit was quick enough to dodge just as the birds struck at him. The chase was now nearing the fence, and it seemed that if the rabbit could succeed in reaching it, he could, by dodging around among the trees, baffle his pursuers. The Eagles seemed to know this also for,