e brood of young birdlings. In some
nests you will find eight or ten eggs, and then you may take three or
four. But if there are but three eggs, you must take only one. Always be
sure to leave more than half. Be careful to gather them before the
mother bird begins to set, because when her brooding-time has begun she
is very jealous of her nest, and is easily frightened away; and then if
the eggs have begun to harden and form young birds, they are useless to
you, for you can not blow them, and they will soon change color and
become worthless.

Never take a nest until the mother has flown away with her little ones
and left it empty; for to disturb the pretty home the bird has built
with so much care for her babies is a wanton cruelty we trust no reader
of YOUNG PEOPLE would be guilty of.

* * * * *

MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA.

I like YOUNG PEOPLE ever so much. I always read the letters in Our
Post-office Box the first thing--they seem so sociable, as if all
the children knew each other well. I enjoy "The Moral Pirates" and
the Information Cards. My home is in San Francisco, but at present
I am visiting in Monterey, a small town on the coast. Monterey is
the oldest town in California. It was first settled by the
Spanish, and the greater part of the inhabitants now are
Spaniards. On a little knoll near the beach, and within a
stone's-throw of the water's edge, there is a large wooden cross;
it is the spot where the Spanish fathers first landed, and the
date on the cross is June 3, 1770.

I think this is the queerest old town imaginable. Almost all the
houses are "adobe" houses, that is, made of a kind of black mud,
then whitewashed, and they have tiled roofs. And around the
gardens are high adobe walls. Nearly all of these adobe houses are
fifty years old, and some of them are said to have been built one
hundred years ago. I am gathering some abalone and other kinds of
shells, and some fine sea-mosses, and when I get home I expect to
make lots of pretty things. I love to play on the beach, and pick
up pretty little things, and run out after the waves, then turn
and let them chase me back; sometimes they catch me, and give my
feet a good soaking; but I don't care, for I like it, only I look
like a fright by the time I get back to the hotel.

I have been sailing on the Paci