10 THE CONDOR Vol. XIX 



beach. The large square crab boxes tied up at the wharf full of the huge 

 squirming Tillamook crabs for which the country is noted, have to be securely 

 covered to keep the Gulls out, for as the fisherman told me, "they swipe a crab 

 as quick as they would a clam. ' ' 



While the Gulls have to be reckoned with in such minor ways, the villages, 

 as the people fully realize, would be uninhabitable were it not for the birds. 

 In the fall the salmon that have come into Tillamook Bay go up the creeks to 

 spawn and when they die are washed down by the high water along the creeks 

 and along the shore, sometimes, as the fisherman assured me, "you might say 

 by the thousands"; and he added realistically, "I've seen the little creeks so 

 thick you couldn't see the bottom." At this perilous moment the Gulls gather, 

 and acting as scavengers save the day for the villagers. A large salmon run 

 was predicted the year of my visit because the water was deep on the bar — 

 twenty-one feet at low tide — so that the fish could get in easily. The Tilla- 

 mook squaws endorsed the prediction because — there was a large crop of sal- 

 mon berries ! 



In the dull season the Gulls sometimes steal fish from their Cormorant 

 neighbors, expert divers who come up with small fry temptingly exposed in 

 their bills. When down on the shore one day, hearing a hoarse cry I looked up 

 just in time to see one of the black-bodied Cormorants shake off a white-breast- 

 ed Gull and then raise its bill and swallow, its catch safe from all pilferers. 



It was interesting to watch a Cormorant come down the bay, flying stead- 

 ily low over the water with its long neck curved up, to light heavy bodied and 

 rapidly sink to a black hook, only its small head and long neck visible. 

 When both Gulls and Cormorants were out in the bay the scene was always 

 shifting. One moment there would be a row of black hooks and a row of 

 white breasts. Then the black hooks would tip forward and Grebe-like disap- 

 pear under the water. But if I glanced away, on looking back again, there 

 would be the row of black hooks. Twenty-five Cormorants I counted in line at 

 one time, but on the instant a band of Gulls unceremoniously plumped down 

 among them and instead of the orderly black row, there was a confusion of 

 white wings and black necks. 



Down the shore a white line of Gulls feeding on a mud flat would rise and 

 shift back and forth calling, and when the flock finally broke up and drifted 

 my way, a band passed over my head so white against the deep blue sky that it 

 was a thrilling sight. Small squads scattered over the beach, one of them gath- 

 ering around a little clam pile near by, the handsome adults with their pure 

 white bodies, dark gray mantles, and yellow bills, the young with mottled 

 brownish bodies and black bills. One poor bird with a broken leg pecked at 

 the already emptied shells in a desultory manner, but the rest for the most part 

 stood around playing or teasing each other, crying out in loud Gull tones with 

 their wild sea quality. 



An occasional Barn Swallow went skimming low over the beach, the beach 

 where lay old gray logs higher than I could reach, dethroned monarchs from 

 the noble mountain forest up the coast, and below them the sand was wreathed 

 with streamers of fine green seaweed that had drifted in with the tide, ripple 

 marks, Gull tracks, and empty clam shells each adding a line to the complex, 

 fascinating story of the meeting of these children of mountain, sea, and air. 



Down along the water's edge, oblivious of the crowds of Gulls and rows of 

 Cormorants, a Great Blue Heron, a solitary fisherman absorbed in his pursuit, 



