10 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



speck, which our pilot assured us was the celebrated rock of 

 our wishes. After a while I could distinctly see its top from 

 the deck, and thought that it was still covered with snow sev- 

 eral feet deep. As we approached it, I imagined that the at- 

 mosphere around was filled with flakes, but on my turning to 

 the pilot, who smiled at my simplicity, I was assured that noth- 

 ing was in sight but the Gannets and their island home. I 

 rubbed my eyes, took up my glass, and saw that the strange 

 dimness of the air before us was caused by the innumerable 

 birds, whose white bodies and black-tipped pinions produced a 

 blended tint of light-grey. When we had advanced to within 

 half a mile, this magnificent veil of floating Gannets was easily 

 seen, now shooting upwards, as if intent on reaching the sky, 

 then descending as if to join the feathered masses below, and 

 again diverging toward either side and sweeping over the sur- 

 face of the ocean. The Ripley now partially furled her sails, 

 and lay to, when all on board were eager to scale the abrupt 

 side of the mountain isle, and satisfy their curiosity. 2 



Audubon's accounts of the birds are copious, inter- 

 esting and generally accurate, considering the time and 

 circumstances in which they were produced. When at 

 his best, his pictures were marvels of fidelity and close 

 observation, and in some of his studies of mammals, like 

 that of the raccoon (see p. 182), in which seemingly 

 every hair is carefully rendered, we are reminded of 

 the work of the old Dutch masters and of Albrecht 

 Diirer; notwithstanding such attention to microscopic 

 detail, there is no flatness, but the values of light and 

 shade are perfectly rendered. In his historical survey 

 of American ornithology, Elliott Coues was fully justi- 

 fied in designating the years 1824-1853 as representing 

 the "Audubonian Epoch," and the time from 1834 to its 

 close as the "Audubonian Period." "The splendid 



2 Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2), vol. iv, p. 222. 



