Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/133

 This most splendid of all the speciaes of cormorants yet discovered, inhabits in considerable numbers the Rocky Cape at the entrance of the Columbia river, upon the sides of which, it often rests, and no doubt rears its young within the natural cavities which front the tempestuous ocean, and in situations wholly inaccessible to man. Sometimes many weeks elapse in which not a single cormorant is seen, when suddenly a flock of fifty or sixty, is observed to enter the bay, every individual of which immediately commences an assiduous search for the small fish and mollusks which constitute its food. It never ascends the river, but keeping almost constantly around the cape, under shelter of the enormous breakers which are incessantly dashing against it, successfully defies all attempts to shoot it. The procuring of the only specimen which I was ever enabled to kill, almost cost the lives of myself and eight men! Our boat was carried with frightful velocity into the furious breakers, and a full hour was consumed in unremitting efforts to escape the danger towards which the swift current was hurrying us.

"Thomas Nuttall was also a member of the Wyeth expedition ot 1834. He was much older than Townsend, being 48. While on the Columbia he made trips into the surrounding country, collecting botanical specimens as far as the falls of the Willamette. He was of a retiring nature. He was the author of The North American Sylva, in three volumes, from which this description is selected."

The topographical range of this splendid species of Maple, wholly indigenous to the north-west coast of America or the territory of Oregon, is a somewhat narrow strip along the coast of the Pacific, not extending into the interior beyond the alluvial tracts of the Oregon, which commence at the second cataracts of that river (known by the name of the Dalles), and at the distance of about 130 miles from the sea.