THE WHITE -WINGED FLEET 



dark, spruce-covered island, spectacle-shaped, the 

 two lobes connected by a narrow bar. Dotted all 

 over the spruces were snowy Herring Gulls perched 

 upon their tops ; many others were already a-wing, 

 flying out to sea to feed, squealing and cackling 

 incessantly. The sky was clear, and the east already 

 rosy red, changing its hues moment by moment, 

 as the sun approached the horizon. All at once 

 the glowing orb seemed to fairly bound from the 

 deep, and instantly the whole scene was wonder- 

 ously transformed. The ocean, recently so dark, 

 now glittered and sparkled as with myriad dia- 

 monds; the spruces reddened under their baptism 

 o f fire ; the 

 Gulls were 

 gleams of living 

 radiance. From 

 the spruces ex- 

 tended a long 

 line of them in 

 flight, going a 

 mile or more 

 out to some 

 shoal water, 

 where a large 

 flock were rid- 

 ing at anchor, 

 and others were 

 hovering over schools of fish. "Devil's Limb," the 

 grim rock of Cormorant-resort to the westward, 

 looked less forbidding in the glad sunshine that 

 warmed up its wet, ragged sides into the semblance 

 of a smile. 



WESTERN GULLS. BY OTTO VON BARGEN 



133 



