THE SEA-BIRDS' HOME 61 



shaped of the waves, with stormy voices given them 

 by the winds that sweep in from the sea. 



As I looked up at the amazing scene, at the mighty 

 rocks and the multitude of winging forms, I seemed 

 to see three swirling piles of life, three cones that 

 rose like volcanoes from the ocean, their sides cov- 

 ered with living lava, their craters clouded with the 

 smoke of wings, while their bases seemed belted by 

 the rumble of a multi-throated thunder. The very air 

 was dank with the smell of strange, strong volcanic 

 gases, no breath of the land, no odor of herb, no scent 

 of fresh soil ; but the raw, rank smells of rookery and 

 den, saline, kelpy, fetid; the stench of fish and 

 bedded guano, and of the reeking pools where the 

 sea-lion herds lay sleeping on the lower rocks in 

 the sun. 



A boat's keel was beneath me, but as I stood out 

 on the pointed prow, barely above the water, and 

 found myself thrust forward without will or effort 

 among the crags and caverns, among the shadowy 

 walls, the damps, the smells, the sounds, among the 

 bellowing beasts in the churning waters about me, 

 and into the storm of wings and tongues in the whirl- 

 ing air above me, I passed from the things I had 

 known, and the time and the earth of man, into a 

 monstrous period of the past. 



This was the home of the sea-birds. Amid all the 

 din we landed from a yawl and began our climb 

 toward the top of Shag Rock, the outermost of the 



