FISHING IN THE HUDSON'S GORGE 377 



over all his scales. Through every pigmental vis- 

 cissitude, every colorful emotion, only his golden 

 eye and scarlet tail remained unchanged. This 

 little Joseph of the sea was one of my greatest de- 

 lights — and in his scant two inches I saw and re- 

 spected what to me typified fearlessness, dignity, 

 poise, adaptation, besides incredibly kaleidoscopic 

 beauty. 



I have said that the sea stretched unbroken to 

 the horizon, but after we had floated quietly 

 throughout the first day, this was not strictly true. 

 After dinner I went up on the flying bridge as 

 usual to watch the sunset, which, however, was 

 wholly drowned in horizon mist. We had no wake, 

 of course, as our engines were still, but broadside 

 on, to windward, which was south-east, was a long 

 and irregular trail, marking our slow, wind-pushed, 

 crabwise movement. Slick after slick marked the 

 places where the galley had poured out gravy or 

 the engine room oil, and here were gathered a host 

 of stormy petrels. At sunset there were two hun- 

 dred and eighty-six and more were coming every 

 minute. I watched carefully and saw eight 

 Mother Carey's chickens arrive singly upwind, ap- 

 pearing far away on the leeward side of the Arc- 

 turus where they could not possibly have seen the 

 oily slicks. Later three flew into vision at right 

 angles to the wind, turning only when they were 

 close. It seemed to me that these little birds, with 

 their sharp eyes and long, tubular nostrils, prob- 

 ably make use of both senses under different con- 

 ditions, in discovering, and directing their course 



