Arizona republican., 1911-08-08
SPIRITS OF THE
 DEEP BLUE SEA
Stormy Petrel Never Touhces Land
 Except to Hatch Young.

It was in the beginning of time l giant had cut off the top of a
 mammoth tree with a chopper, and,
 taking the 600 foot stump, had set it in the midst of the ocean, where
 through the ages. it petrified and be-
 came black-bray rock says London Answers. This rock was so utterly
 sheer that nothing, not even a gull.
 could find nesting ledge upon it. and
 men said that no living creature
 made it's home thereon. And they
 were wrong.
 The top of the rock was flat, but sloped, as if the giant had not cut
 quite true, and it was covered with deep, soft, black soil, all starred with
 nodding sea a-pinks. which bent and whispered to the everlasting wind of
 the place that shaved all down to
 turf level. Also. the turf vas pock- marked over with little holes, smaller than a rabbits.
 Now, because no man had ever set foot on the top of that rock, the aviator though he would like to do 80. Therefore, he made his preparations
 and a wager, and, one fine summer day, won 1t. boats standing by to salvage the corpse. He stepped out on
 to the .springy turf and walked to the
 edge. and being an aviator. looked over
 into nothing without foolishly turn
 ing giddy and going to his fathers
 Then the little holes struck him.
 He knelt and was aware of the smell of oil.
 By jove." he said, something does live here, after all. Rats!-and put his hand into a hole.
 Very quickly. indeed, was that
 hand withdrawn. and most disgrace
 fully i'll was that aviator. Something had smothered his hand in a thick | oily. fluid, and-Look here, you know | the smell fo a skunk? This wasn't
 in the least like the smell of a skunk
 but it was nearly as bad The winds | of high heaven saved that aviator from asphyxiation, he says. He also says that gleaming eyes glared at | him. Then he came away.
 When night had thrown her wet, gray tresses over the lonely seas, the l owner of that hole came out, and | standing in the last lingering after | light from the west one saw that it was not a rat at all, but bird. It was smaller than a thrush, and
 the color of it was one with the dark
 ness. but it had wings almost twice as long as the wings of any thrush | Then it flew down to the sea to feed
 and became living wonder. It walk ed upon the waves. or. at least. it
 seemed to. Little bird of St. Peter"
 they called it, or petrel-stormy pe-
 trel, the Mother Carey's chicken" of the sailors.
 It flew. fitting. like some spirit of the ocean, just above the waves. its feet dropped down. paddling cOntinu ously, tiny. restless form-now trip ping along the top of 40 foot father
 of rollers; now lost in a trough half mile long. It spooned up tiny atoms -flotsam-as it flew.
 Then, before the first hint of dawn. | 1t returned to the rock, and dived ! within the hole full of food for it's
 single sooty young. who had come | from a single white egg, that had | been seven weeks in the matching, and
 ten in getting ready to fly.
 That afternoon, in the full glare of the copper sun, the two petrels
 and their young one came out. and | for the first time since nesting began flew in the light of open day. Away
 they fitted tripping over the long.
 sullen. jade green swells. three specks of mystery, spirit of the deep, alone
 on all that waste of waters. save for
 the four buff tunnels of Hamburg American liner low down in the west. Night found them 100 miles from | that rock week later found them | 1000 miles from home-tripping, trip ping. fitting fitting, always pressing | restlessly on, as if doomed to walk
 the seas for aye. For aught I know,
 they are wandering the world around | without rest to this day. and that was six months ago.
 And, moreover. do know that dur
 ing that time. in storm. in calm. in
 blizzard, in fog in gale in topic heat
 or Arctic cold, those tiny, webbed
 paddling feet have never once touched
 land, and will not until it is time to