Page:Literary pilgrimages of a naturalist (IA literarypilgrima00packrich).pdf/89

 crabs wait the deliverance of the full sea and kelp waves its long, dark-olive, ruffle-margined banners. Down among these with the ear close to the smooth, undulating surface you may catch the eerie plaint of the whistling buoy off the channel some miles to landward, telling its loneliness in recurrent moans.

Up on the rocks again in the bright sunlight, one finds the land birds numerous, chief among which are the song sparrows. In the secluded peace of the place these also, evidently making their summer home here and nesting in the shrubbery that is all about, have lost most of their fear of man and will approach very near to gather crumbs about your feet. A small flock of robins goes by, stopping a moment to feed, then taking wing again as if practising for that southward migration which will begin before very long. Olive-sided flycatchers, already working toward the sun, flit to catch flies and light alternately almost as if playing leapfrog from bush to bush. So far as I have observed, the olive-sided flycatchers do most of their migrating thus, hippety-hop from perch to perch, with a fly well caught