196 WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON 



the mouth of the Penobscot Bay and northward ; 

 or Wilson's petrel, a migrant from the south ; or 

 near the European coast, the little "stormy" petrel 

 that breeds from the Shetland Islands to the 

 Mediterranean. 



There are certain birds that since my childhood 

 have had a strong hold upon my imagination. 

 One of these is the stormy petrel — all petrels 

 being "stormy" to me. I cannot remember when 

 his wide-flung flight did not seem to me the very 

 soul of the ocean, nor when I did not wish to fol- 

 low him over the waves to his rookery on the 

 cliffs. Yet I was a man before I saw my first flock 

 of the birds skimming the waves of the Atlantic 

 — a man in years, but still a child haunted by 

 the lines of some poem called " The Stormy 

 Petrel" read, or read to me, from some old 

 McGuffey Reader, I imagine, before I ever started 

 to school. A bird in a poem is worth almost as 

 much to a child as a bird in a bush; perhaps 

 more. I have learned many facts in the fields, but 

 how many of my feelings have come to me out 

 of books ! I felt my stormy petrel long before I 

 knew him. He was a poem long before he was 

 a bird, and the beat of his wings must ever be — 



