54 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



Often the young sit on some safe pinnacle and 

 are fed there, the old bird flashing up, twittering, 

 delivering a message and a mouthful at the same 

 time, then flashing away again, whirling and 

 wheeling, never beyond call of the eager fledgling. 

 Often the fledgling soars into space, hardly to be 

 distinguished then from the older bird, and twit- 

 ters back and forth near the parent. Then when 

 the latter comes with a mouthful the former 

 simply poises fluttering while the old bird dashes 

 up, twitters and feeds, and is off again in the 

 flash of an eye, so fleet of motion, so agile of turn, 

 that it puzzles the watcher to follow the course 

 of flight. 



At the bottom of the tide the rocks over which 

 the tree swallows swirl with the waves are a 

 golden olive with the sun-touched tips of the car- 

 rageen. Higher up the boulders lift their heads 

 with the air-celled rockweed falling all about them 

 like wet hair. Some of these tresses hang down 

 in golden luxuriance, others are dark, almost 

 black, as if blondes and brunettes were to be found 

 among tide rocks as among men. Between these 

 rocks are still pools of brine where mussels and 



