waving grass and grey sand dotted with hundreds
and hundreds of crude nests. Each nest contained from one to three
eggs, larger than duck eggs, and of a nile-green color closely speckled
with brown, yellow and lavender. Why, they were so near together,
Gregg, that it was difficult to step without crushing the eggs!"

With the memory of the gull island in her mind, she started with Harlan
to traverse the stretch of green back of the promontory.

Back and forth for a square mile they went, searching the flat above
the cliffs. Gulls, flying above, eyed them curiously, making strange
human sounds. Occasionally one alighted on the ground. As often as
this happened they raced hopefully to the spot but found nothing but
grass blades bending from the wind.

"It's no use, Jean," Harlan decided, after two hours' vain effort.
"It's too early for them to lay. Let's go back to the edge of the
cliffs. The shags lay earlier, I believe, only their nests are so
blamed hard to get at down there."

Jean was not enthusiastic about shag nests.

"They fill me with melancholy--those long-necked, black creatures,
Gregg," she said uneasily. "Lollie and I call them witch-birds. I
remember last fall we used to sit on the porch steps in the afterglow,
watching them--strings of dusky, witch-birds, speeding silent and low
over the darkening water to the cliffs. But, if you wish," she added,
"we'll go and see."

They headed for the windy heights overlooking the ocean, where nodding
tundra grass fringed the space beyond. Harlan took her hand as they
crept close to the edge. They peered down through the cloud of wild
fowl that swarmed in uncounted thousands before their eyes. Three
hundred feet below, deliberate blue rollers, with spray-laced tops
swept in and broke against the rocks, the impact sending whitened water
high into the air. The face of the cliff was plastered with seabirds:
murres, gulls, sea-parrots and cormorants. Harlan threw a stone down
and the air became black with them, leaving the numbers in the rocks
apparently the same. Sea-parrots flew in from the water and
disappeared under the overhanging sod at the top. Mingled with the
breath of the ocean was the wild, unforgetable odor that clings to the
places where seabirds roost.

Suddenly Harlan spoke. "There _are_ shags eggs down there, Jean, but
the cliff right here is too steep for us to get them. I couldn't even
let you down over the edge on the rope. But