76 Union Bay 



marsh margins. I had been grounded on a small flat for fully 

 ten minutes before I noticed a bittern standing a few yards 

 to my right, with body stiff and head pointed upward. A 

 Traill flycatcher, sitting almost erect in the manner of its 

 kind, called from a low willow and from time to time flew 

 out to snap up a passing insect. Odors filled the air. Predom- 

 inant was the keen pungency of the marsh itself, but mixed 

 with it was the unmistakable sweetness of the cottonwoods, 

 the smell produced by the suri on the dew-covered vegeta- 

 tion, and the acrid but infrequent scent of rubber burning 

 on the nearby sanitary fill. 



The prow of the first shell appeared and almost immedi- 

 ately all three craft and the coaching launch passed me. The 

 black outriggers for the oars projected like the legs of a huge 

 insect. A little wave curled and bubbled at the bow of each 

 boat. Eight stalwarts responded to the cadence set by one 

 small coxswain. The passing of a shell at a distance is smooth, 

 powerful, and graceful, but often the feeling of speed is lost 

 in the vastness of the background. But here in the marsh and 

 so close to me, all other impressions were subordinated to 

 that of swiftness. What would aborigines, viewing these con- 

 traptions at some distance, have thought of them? Not as 

 some kind of a bird— birds seldom confine themselves to one 

 plane and almost never swim continuously at high speeds. 

 Not as mammals, for mammals do not make an even display 

 of the upper part of their bodies as they swim. They might 

 have thought of them in terms of water striders, those long- 

 legged insects which do not swim in the water but use their 

 legs to propel their slender bodies swiftly, but more or less 

 irregularly, over the surface film. That is somewhat the 

 nature of the shells: they seem to move on, rather than in, 

 the water as does an ordinary boat. Shells are designed for 

 lightness, shallow draft, and streamlined curves so they can 

 be operated with great speed. But, like the water striders, 



