AMONG THE WaTER-Fow LL 
to one side, and away they go across the white- 
capped ranges of ocean mountains. Wild things 
they are, living that roving life on the unquiet 
ocean, knowing for months no real resting place. 
How can they rest amid the breaking seas? . Who 
knows, when the gales blow for days at a time, 
whether they remain all that time, day and night, 
upon wing, or settle momentarily on the agitated 
water, till a breaking surge soon forces them vanes 
And how fare the seemingly puny little Petrels, sc 
slight of form that they appear like little cal 
butterflies or tufts of dow mn, driven by every blast ? 
At times the storms are indeed more than they 
can bear. I have seen dead bodies of Shearwaters 
on the ocean beach, and once I was witness to the 
close of the wandering career of a Leach’s Petrel. 
It was during the raging of an October hurricane 
from the northeast, when, impressed by the sublimity 
of the forces that were uprooting trees and multi- 
plying destruction upon the land, I took the train 
to Sandwich, on Cape Cod, that I might witness 
the effect of the storm upon the ocean: ~Iinese 
who have been by the sea at such a time can realize 
much that I witnessed. It was well worth braving 
the beating rain and the furious wind to see the 
surges thunder in upon the sand, the white, seething 
cauldron of the ocean, and the hordes of water-fowl, 
mostly sea-ducks of various sorts, thousands upon 
thousands of them, that were passing, some skim- 
ming low over the waves, others blown in over the 
beach. Strong of wing, ‘ie gale but helped them 
on their souitiwentl course,—yet not all. As I stood 
on the sand, I noticed a flutter of wings amid an 
104 
