BIRD STORIES 



Easily, with wings fluttering slightly, Larie would fol- 

 low the clam, floating gracefully, though quickly, down 

 to where it had cracked upon the rocks. The morsel 

 in its broken shell was now ready to eat, for Larie and 

 his mate did not bake their sea-food or make it into 

 chowder. Cold salad flavored with sea-salt was all they 

 needed. 



Exciting as were these hunts with the flocks of scream- 

 ing gulls, it was not for food alone that Larie and his 

 mate lived that spring. For under the blue of the airy 

 sky there was an ocean, and in that ocean there was an 

 island, and on that island there was a nest, and in that 

 nest there was an egg — the first that the mate of Larie 

 had ever laid. And in that egg was a growing gull, their 

 eldest son — a baby Larie, alone inside his very first 

 world. 



