Makch 4, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



291 



Since the object of the present article is 

 to call attention to the fund of information 

 contained in the journals nothing need be 

 said of Audubon's personal history or the 

 vicissitudes of his early and middle life. 



In his search for mammals and birds 

 Audubon traveled thousands of miles afoot 

 in the Eastern and Southern States, from 

 Maine to Florida, Louisiana and Texas, 

 and made special expeditions to Labrador 

 and the Yellowstone — the latter at a time 

 of life when most men who have lived to 

 reach such a ripe age seek the quiet and 

 comforts of home. It was on this latter 

 trip he wrote : "I am getting an old man, 

 for this evening I missed my footing on 

 getting into the boat and bruised my knee 

 and elbow, but at seventy and over I can- 

 not have the spring of seventeen." 



In 1833, when about sixty years of age? 

 Audubon chartered a schooner and with 

 his son John Woodhouse, and four other 

 companions, set sail for Labrador to obtain 

 additional material for his great work on 

 the Birds of America. The journal of 

 this cruise overflows with interesting obser- 

 vations in natural history and is of special 

 value to the ornithologist. Now and then 

 an error of intei'pretation creeps in, as 

 when ' tracks of Deer and Caribou ' are 

 mentioned — for the only deer in Labrador 

 is the Caribou — and when glacier-carried 

 boulders are supposed to have been cast up 

 by the sea. 



On their way the party visited Bird Rock 

 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It was on 

 the 14th of June, and "at eleven," Audubon 

 writes, "I could distinguish its top plainly 

 from the deck, and thought it covered 

 with snow to a depth of several feet ; this 

 appearance existed on every portion of the 

 flat, projecting shelves. Godwin [the pilot] 

 said, with the coolness of a man who had 

 visited this rock for ten successive seasons, 

 that what we saw was not snow — but Gan- 

 nets! I rubbed my eyes, took my spy- 



glass, and in an instant the strangest pic- 

 ture stood before me. They were birds we 

 saw,— a mass of birds of such a size as I 

 never before cast my eyes on. The whole 

 of my party stood astounded and amazed, 

 and all came to the conclusion that such a 

 sight was of itself sufficient to invite any 

 one to come across the Gulf to view it at 

 this season. The nearer we approached, 

 the greater our surprise at the enormous 

 number of these birds, all calmly seated 

 on their eggs or newly hatched brood, their 

 heads all turned to windward." 



On the 17th of June the party reached 

 South Labrador, in the neighborhood of 

 Natasquan, and Audubon wrote in his 

 journal : " The shores appeared to be mar- 

 gined with a hroad and handsome sand- 

 beach ; our imaginations now saw Bears, 

 Wolves, and Devils of all sorts scampering 

 away on the rugged shore." A little later 

 he continues : 



" And now we are positively on the Lab- 

 rador coast, Latitude 50° and a little 

 more, — farther north than I ever was be- 

 fore. But what a country ! When we 

 landed and passed the beach, we sank 

 nearly up to our knees in mosses of various 

 sorts, producing as we moved through them 

 a curious sensation. These mosses, which 

 at a distance look like hard rocks, are, 

 under foot, like a velvet cushion. We 

 scrambled about, and with anxiety stretched 

 our necks and looked over the country far 

 and near, but not a square foot of earth 

 could we see. A poor, rugged, miserable 

 country ; the trees like so many mops of 

 wiry composition, and where the soil is not 

 rocky it is boggy up to a man's waist." 

 ■ A few days later he gave a more pleas- 

 ing picture : 



" The country, so wild and grand, is of 

 itself enough to interest any one in its won- 

 derful dreariness. Its mossy, gray-clothed 

 rocks, heaped and thrown together as if by 

 chance, in the most fantastical groups im- 



