Patrolling the Beach, 



and broken shells — all testifying to the 

 power of the tempest. 



Here and there amid the kelp, or 

 sometimes along the open beach at the 

 line of high tide, lie the bodies of the 

 birds which have been overcome by the 

 elements. I fancy I can hear their wild 

 cries in the night, almost lost in the 

 tumult of the gale, as the great white 

 ghosts of waves leap up and drag them 

 under. Even the albatross has not 

 been spared, for here he lies, his 

 plumage wet and bedraggled, and his im- 

 mense pinions half buried in the sand — 

 the king of sea birds, the master of the 

 air! See his huge, brown back, his 

 breast of gray, mottled with brown, his 

 feet of livid gray, and his large, tube- 

 nosed beak of a pinkish flesh-color, 

 tipped with blue. A day ago his 

 broad wings were swinging him down 

 into the cold, quivering hollows, between 

 the towering wave crests, and he was 

 reveling in the tumult of the storm. 

 To-day he is but a clod for the life- 



55 



