CHAPTER VII 

 THE SEA-BIRDS' HOME 



AFTER my wandering for years among the 

 quiet lanes and along the winding cow-paths 

 of the home fields, my trip to the wild-bird 

 rocks in the Pacific Ocean, as you can imagine, was 

 a thrilling experience. We chartered a little launch 

 at Tillamook, and, after a fight of hours and hours 

 to cross Tillamook Bar at the mouth of the bay, we 

 got out upon the wide Pacific, and steamed down 

 the coast for Three- Arch Rocks, which soon began to 

 show far ahead of us just off the rocky shore. 



I had never been on the Pacific before, nor had 

 I ever before seen the birds that were even now be- 

 ginning to dot the sea and to sail over and about us 

 as we steamed along. It was all new, so new that the 

 very water of the Pacific looked unlike the familiar 

 water of the Atlantic. And surely the waves were 

 different, longer, grayer, smoother, with an im- 

 mensely mightier heave. At least they seemed so, 

 for every time we rose on the swell, it was as if our 

 > boat were in the hand of Old Ocean, and his mighty 

 * arm were "putting" us, as the athlete "puts" the 

 shot. It was all new and strange and very wild to 

 me, with the wild cries of the sea-birds already 



