isroisrsucH 



was absent one day, I climbed down from above, 

 took a firm toe grip on a branch and let myself 

 down until my head was well inside the hollow. 

 The view through the vines and arched ways was 

 very lovely, even upside down as I saw it and with 

 a longtail chick thumping my nape. Lest we are 

 tempted to endow tropicbirds with aesthetic tend- 

 encies let us remember the deep, dark, ill-smelling 

 tunnels which form most of their homes, and realize 

 that safety and accessibility are the real requisites. 

 Sometimes at midnight I have slipped out under 

 the stars, made my way very carefully along the 

 south shore path, and lying flat on the jagged 

 ridge, listened intently. Before long there would 

 come to my ears a subdued cheeping or a deeper 

 note and I know that deep within the stone be- 

 low me were tropicbirds and their chick, content- 

 edly murmuring whatever tropicbirds murmur at 

 midnight. And I thought of Nonsuch, not as my 

 laboratory, nor even as one of the most beautiful 

 of the Somers Isles, but as a great rugged pile 

 of marble, with the hearts of twice one hundred 

 birds beating deep within — birds which, three 

 months hence, would be scattered far and wide over 

 tropical waters. I went back into my own little 

 cave of a room, and I knew that the longtails and 

 I shared one very real emotion — love for our 

 island. 



154 



