BATTLEFIELD OF THE SHORE 



Here however was a tropicbird, essentially a be- 

 ing of the air, and a mammal of the land, both in 

 trouble of sorts, due to maladjustment. I sculled 

 and got my breath, and found myself at the outer 

 line of foam. I had no trouble at first in getting in, 

 once I secured a good grip on the rocks, but farther 

 on a second bit of stone gave way and down I rolled, 

 half buried in the smother before I could scramble 

 a few feet higher. Here I made two brief stops, 

 once to dig in as the water broke over me, and again 

 when I reached a wide pool, freshened by every tide 

 and full of the brave little gobies who had fought 

 and won this great fight. When well out of the 

 waves, I sat and got my breath back again, ex- 

 amined my wounds and wrung out my clothes, 

 gradually assuming again the characteristics of a 

 member of the terrestrial fauna of the globe. 



I looked out at the young tropicbird bobbing up 

 and down and realized that after all I was even 

 more sharply set off from the creatures of the sea 

 than my habiliments and unaquatic, inadequate 

 limbs suggested — for my difficulty in getting in- 

 shore again, my temporary panic were due to my 

 altruistic attempts to save the bird from what, 

 sooner or later, must have been certain death. And 

 this was a mental attribute \^hich would never have 

 worried any oceanic being trying in past ages to go 

 terra firma. 



In my laboratory I threw away my cheap, water- 

 soaked watch and unlimbered another, dried my 

 rust-proof knife, hung up my leather belt in the sun, 



83 



